


Turn & Turn Again

by alinaandalion



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:43:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alinaandalion/pseuds/alinaandalion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A shadow organization takes the team and Maggie prisoner, leaving Nate on the run while the others are left to face experimentation and the beginnings of a spiral into insanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a tourist in the waking world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Birdhouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdhouse/gifts).



> Beta(s): downbythebay_4 did a wonderful job right up to the last minute; Birdhouse gets an honorable mention for doing some major handholding and encouraging in the beginning when I was getting this off the ground.  
> Artist: The wonderful [Birdhouse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdhouse/pseuds/Birdhouse)  
> Disclaimer: Do not own.  
> Characters/Pairings: Team, Sterling, Maggie; Nate/Sophie, Parker/Hardison, background Maggie/Sterling.  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Genre: Drama, angst.  
> Warnings/spoilers: Character death, graphic sex, spoilers for up through the end of Season Four, but particularly for The Queen's Gambit Job.  
> Word Count: 32,919  
> Art Link: [House fanmix](http://totheleftofmars.livejournal.com/7936.html#cutid1)

**Chapter One:  a tourist in the waking world**   
_"Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state  
A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake  
No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber  
Until I realise that it was you who held me under_ _"_   
**_\- "Blinding” by Florence + The Machine_ **

  


Joseph tapped his pencil against his yellow notepad.  He had a list of questions, the same basic questions he always had to ask, but he was nervous.  Sometimes he felt like waiting on that door to open was comparable to a game of Russian roulette.

There were two knocks, and an armed guard stepped into the white room.  A woman followed him inside, and she was trailed by a second guard.

When Joseph had been approached with the offer of participating in groundbreaking psychiatric work, this wasn’t what he had imagined.

Not by a long shot.  
  
The woman took the only empty chair, directly across from him and exactly three feet away.  She flipped her long brown curls over her shoulder and arched an eyebrow at the guards.  
  
He knew she wasn’t dismissing them, but with the way they turned and left, it felt like she was the one in charge.  
  
He constantly had to remind himself that he held the power, at least in this room.  
  
“Hello, Doctor.”  
  
“Name, please.”

“Annie Kroy”  
  
A shudder ran up his spine at the rough Cockney accent; of all people, she had walked through the door.  He remembered the cameras and the hidden microphones, and the hour time limit, so he cleared his throat and focused on the first question.  
  
“How long have you known Nathan Ford?”  
  
She smirked and crossed her legs.  “For awhile now.  Of course, I don’t know him very well, since we didn’t normally work in the same circles.”  
  
“Can you describe him to me?  First impressions, any details you might remember.”  
  
She blinked, and he watched her as she shifted in her chair.  He would go through the footage of this session later, looking for tells that she was lying, but it was best to catch it now, to use it against her.  He had been playing with her supposed weakness for months now, and he hadn’t even gotten close to cracking her.  
  
“He’s handsome.  He has gorgeous blue eyes.  And, he’s very smart.”  
  
When she lapsed into silence for a few moments, he pressed, “Is there nothing else you can remember?”  
  
“Nothing important.  I told you that I didn’t associate much with him.”  
  
He hit his notepad in frustration.  “Ms. Devereaux, we will never accomplish anything if you refuse to cooperate!”  
  
“That is not my name.”  Her voice snapped, and he froze as she stared at him.  
  
“Putting up these walls will not….”  
  
“I have no interest in helping you.”  Her eyes were darker were normal; he considered pressing the panic button on the underside of his chair as she stood and crossed the short distance to him.  “I think we’re finished here for today.”  
  
“You’ve only been here for twenty minutes.  The requirement is for an hour.”  
  
She had already started for the door.  “You can be the one to explain to your superiors that you are incapable of doing your job.  I am done talking with you.”

He had no choice but to let her leave, and he certainly wasn’t sorry to see her go.  Annie Kroy terrified him, almost as much as when she showed up as Sophie Devereaux.  He would pay for this later, of course, and they had only made it through the first two questions.  It was some progress.  He normally never got the past the first one with her.

***************

“How long have you known Nathan Ford?”

Joseph tapped his pencil against the pad in his lap.  Parker stared back at him, slumped down in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest.  He waited two minutes for an answer and sighed.

“What can you tell me about Nathan Ford?  First impressions or certain incidents that stand out in your memory would be good places to start.”

The only reaction he got was a small twitch of her eyebrow.  At least she was staying in her seat this time.  
  
“Can you tell me of any place you know of where Nathan Ford might be hiding?”  
  
Again, she didn’t answer.  As this was their second round of these questions during the hour, he decided to change tactics.  
  
“I’ve heard that you don’t talk to any of your team members.  Can you tell me why?”  
  
She straightened her back at that, but her expression didn’t change.  He relaxed back into his chair, hoping that he might manage to shift the power back to himself.  
  
“Not even Alec Hardison, to whom you used to be very close.  I wonder why that is.  Could it be that he just doesn’t want anything to do with you?  Do you think he might have found someone better?  Less damaged, maybe?”  
  
As he spoke, he saw the uncertainty in her eyes and the way her fingers pulled at her long sleeves.  But it was only a small falter, because he blinked and her blank stare was back in place.  
  
He checked his watch; only a minute and forty-three seconds left to go.  He scribbled some nonsense onto his pad and then sat there, just watching her and waiting.  And, if he wasn’t mistaken, she looked as though she would like nothing more than to lean across the space between them and snap his neck.  
  
He might have gotten that small reaction, but he wasn’t sure if it was worth it.  Maybe silence wasn’t all that bad.

***************

Hardison shook his head.  “Naw, man, you got it all wrong.  That ain’t Parker.”  
  
As this wasn’t their first discussion of the matter, Joseph closed his eyes and counted back from five before asking, “Are you telling me that you believe Parker is an imposter?”  
  
“I’m saying that this all a damn hoax.  She looks like Parker, acts like her, but it ain’t the real Parker.  Y’all are just trying to get me to tell you where my people are.”  
  
“So you don’t believe that Sophie Devereaux and Eliot Spencer are here, either?”  
  
“’Course not.  You people must think I’m stupid.”  
  
Joseph let out a long breath and reminded himself that at least Hardison was speaking, even if nothing he said was actually beneficial.  The only saving grace for these sessions was that Hardison wasn’t a good enough actor to be believable; a small comfort, but it was nice to know that Hardison was actively lying.  
  
“If you don’t believe your…people are here, then can you tell me where they are?”  Joseph forced a bland smile onto his face.  “I’m sure you miss them.”  
  
Hardison gave a weak chuckle.  “Ain’t no way in hell, man, that I’d tell you.  Think I would help you drag them here so you can experiment on them?  You crazy, dude.  Just plain crazy.”  
  
Joseph checked his watch and almost sighed in relief.  Only twenty seconds left.  
  
“Well, our time is up for today, Mr. Hardison.”  Joseph stood and motioned to the door.  “Maybe we can accomplish more in our next session.”  
  
Hardison smirked and walked to the door.  “Yeah, like that’ll happen.”  
  
As Hardison left, Joseph could have sworn he heard Hardison mutter something about him being adorable.  From the tone of voice, though, he gathered that wasn’t meant as a compliment.

***************

“So, you don’t know Sophie Devereaux?”  
  
“I know of her, I guess.  She’s supposed to be the best grifter in the game.  But, I’ve never crossed paths with her.”  Eliot shrugged.  “Why do you want to know?”  
  
“I have documented evidence here that you used to work with Ms. Devereaux, Nathan Ford, Parker, and Alec Hardison.  Are you telling me that this isn’t true?”  Joseph brandished the manila folder he had brought with him; he was getting tired of being jerked around by these people.  
  
“I guess I am.  Like I said, I ain’t worked with those people.  Well, Ford some.  He paid really well.”  
  
“Take a look, then.”  
  
Joseph handed Eliot the folder and sat back as Eliot flipped it open.  Eliot frowned and pulled out photos and documented phone calls and restricted information from Interpol and CIA files.  He shoved everything back into the folder and tossed it back to Joseph.  
  
“Doctored that stuff or something.  Ain’t me.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“I don’t work with teams.  It’s dangerous.”  
  
Joseph leaned forward, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he was getting somewhere.  “How so?”  
  
“You get attached.”  Eliot shook his head.  “People get under your skin, you start letting your guard down.  Next thing you know, you’re dead.  I ain’t stupid enough to ever do that.”  
  
He held Eliot’s gaze for a little while as he tried to come up with a way to continue on.  Nothing came to mind, and his watch started beeping.  The end of the hour.  
  
“We’ll continue talking next week,” Joseph said with a smile.  
  
Eliot nodded his head and pushed himself to his feet.  “See you later, Doctor.”  
  
Joseph looked down at his pad after Eliot had left; again, he didn’t have any notes because he had yet to learn anything.  Maybe he would have better luck next week.

***************

He studied his new patient and considered his list of questions.  She looked subdued and kept her eyes trained on the floor.  He opened her file and flipped through it; Maggie Collins, an expert on art, Nathan Ford’s ex-wife, and recently transferred here from another unit in the facility.  
  
He had heard stories about the other units.  Stories about torture and experiments that ended horribly.  He was told to pay the stories no mind since the point of what they’re doing here was to make scientific progress.  But, she looked afraid, and he had a weakness for beautiful women.  
  
He cleared his throat and started.  “How long have you known Nathan Ford?”  
  
“Since he started working with IYS and I was verifying art for them,” she mumbled.  “Probably about fifteen years, but I don’t know how long I’ve been here, so it might be longer.”  
  
He raised his eyebrows, surprised by the ready and honest answer.  “What can you tell me about Nathan Ford?”  
  
She raised her eyes to look at him, then, and he had to work to keep from reacting at the sheer emptiness of her gaze.  
  
“What do you want to know?”


	2. hurting in a different way

**Chapter Two:  hurting in a different way**   
_"This house aches, I whistle its tune_   
_After so much noise, freedom is silence_   
_Half the house is missing_   
_Taken half of me with it_   
  
_I had imagined this_   
_Hurting in a different way_   
_Hurting in a different way_   
_Hurting in a different way_ . _"_ _**  
\- “House” by Marillion** _

_**  
** _

Nate rolled out of his bed and shivered when the blankets slipped from his body.  It was another cold morning, and he found himself longing for a hot shower.  He would make do with lukewarm water, though.  
  
As he staggered into the bathroom, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and paused.  He had yet to get used to the disguise he had adopted.  He kept his curls close-cropped to his head now, and he had dyed them black; he was also growing a beard and mustache, and he kept those dyed as well.  Anyone who looked closely enough might still recognize him, especially since the hair job was done so badly.  Sophie would be horrified by it, and he almost smiled at the idea.  
  
He reflexively touched his front shirt pocket at the thought of her, but he moved into the tiny bathroom.  He turned on the water faucet in the shower and waited as the water went from freezing cold to a tepid temperature.  Apparently it was too cold outside for the water to get any warmer.  
  
His shower didn’t take long, maybe five minutes at the most.  He got dressed before moving back into his bedroom.  He had a small hotplate, but he didn’t have any food at the moment, so it looked like he would be missing out on breakfast.  At least he wasn’t really hungry.  
  
He ran a comb through his hair and pulled on his jacket as he left the apartment.  He was currently in Marseilles, and according to his calendar, he had been there for the past twenty days.  Time tended to run together now that he was by himself, and he didn’t associate with anyone out of the general paranoia of worrying that every passerby was a potential threat.  There were only three people he had any contact with at all, and that was sporadic at best; they also only agreed to help him out because he was paying them a lot of money.  He had gotten Hardison to teach him how to steal money from ATMs before the team split up, and that was how he managed to get by.  
  
He pulled out a map and settled onto a bench.  He needed to decide on a new destination.  Marseilles was a great place for him to disappear, but he could only stay stationary for so long before nervousness got the best of him.  Maybe a different country would be a good place to go.  His eyes lingered on Germany; it would be cold, but he knew enough of the language to blend in.  
  
He folded the map up and headed for a small café that sold amazing croissants.  He pulled out his wallet, and his mind touched on the picture of him and Sophie he kept folded up in a small pocket of it.  He was careful to fold the picture around Sophie so there wouldn’t be any creases in her image.  It was the only picture he had kept of her; he had burned the rest when he left the house they had been sharing in Italy.  A lot of details had already faded, but he was determined to remember her face.  It was something that made all of this a little easier.  
  
He handed over his money and left the café; it wasn’t until he was halfway down the street that he realized it had been a long time since he had looked anyone in the eye.

***************

Sophie poked at the mystery meat on her plate and grimaced at the solidifying brown gravy that had been poured on top of it.  It was a less than inspiring lunch, but she was the one to blame for letting it get cold.  She cut off a small piece and put it into her mouth, swallowing it down immediately.  
  
As she inspected her portion of mushy carrots and peas, she felt someone slip past her table; she probed along the rim of her plate and smiled when her fingers landed on a folded up slip of toilet paper.  
  
She pulled the paper apart under the table and read the messy scrawl.  The words were smudged a little, but she could make out the message.  
  
 _You should go talk to her._

 _-2_  
  
She knew the drop had been made by Parker, but the message was from Eliot.  Her eyes flickered over to where Maggie sat alone, staring at her untouched food.  Everyone in the facility had been buzzing about the new addition, and Sophie knew that she and the others were being watched to see if they would make contact with Maggie.  
  
She slipped the paper into her pocket so she could flush it when they got a bathroom break.  They had managed to work out a system by stealing scraps of toilet paper from the bathroom and nubs of charcoal pencils from their mandatory art class.  It was like being stuck in a nursing home, complete with constantly being poked and prodded by doctors and nurses.  
  
But, they managed to communicate that way.  Parker picked all of their pockets whenever she wandered by; if she got a message for someone else, she would drop it to them.  Hardison was allowed to carry messages, but he wasn’t good enough to be able to stay under the radar.  Eliot could pick their pockets, but he never did drops.  Sophie and Parker were the only ones who did both, and Sophie normally left it to Parker since the girl liked it so much.  
  
Parker rifled through Hardison’s pockets the most, though, and Sophie knew he always left a small message there for her.  It was probably dangerous, but Parker was starting to turn into an almost-feral creature, so anything to keep her on this side of sanity was worth the risk.  
  
Sophie turned her consideration back to Maggie; she could ignore Eliot’s suggestion, but she was lonely.  Besides, they needed information about what Maggie was doing there and what had happened to her.  
  
She picked up her plate and walked purposefully towards Maggie’s table; she noticed that a couple of the guards on the fringes of the room were tracking her, but they didn’t move any closer.  She didn’t mind if they decided to eavesdrop; she would still prefer that they stayed where they were.  
  
She sat down beside Maggie and carefully arranged her silverware and glass.  
  
“I’m surprised to see you here.”  
  
Maggie looked up at her then at the guards.  “I’ve been here for awhile.  They were keeping me somewhere…else.”  
  
Sophie speared a piece of carrot on the prongs of her fork and watched it slide off.  “Do you know why you were moved?”  
  
“Who wants to know?”  
  
“We do.”  
  
“I don’t know.  It’s about you, though.”  
  
“Me?”  
  
“You as a collective.”  
  
Sophie nodded.  “Oh.  Have you talked to the doctor yet?”  
  
“Yes.  He asked a lot of questions about Nate.”  Sophie raised an eyebrow, and Maggie sighed.  “I answered them, but he won’t get anything useful out of them.”  
  
“So you’ve figured out what they’re trying to do.”  
  
“It wasn’t hard.  For all their secrets, they’re pretty transparent.”  
  
Sophie nudged Maggie’s hand in the direction of her unused fork.  “You need to eat.  They’ll force you, one way or another.”  
  
Maggie closed her fingers around the utensil and started cutting her meat into small pieces.  “I take it that you found out the hard way?”  
  
“We all did.  And found better ways to rebel.”  
  
“Can I be of any help?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  Sophie pursed her lips and glanced quickly at the guards edging closer to them.  “We don’t know why they have you here or what they want from you.  It’s too dangerous to risk that they might think of you as unnecessary.”  
  
“You’re worried they might decide to just kill me.”  
  
Maggie’s matter-of-fact tone bothered her, but Sophie decided to eat a few of her boiled potatoes.  She noticed Maggie eating her way steadily through her food; she caught Eliot looking in her direction and subtly shook her head.  
  
“Sophie, you’re assuming that’s the worst thing they can do to me.”

***************

Eliot hated art time.  He tended to hate any structure outside of his control, really.  But, it was useful for gathering supplies, so he didn’t cause any trouble.  On purpose, that is.  He couldn’t be held responsible for punching out a guard who decided it was a good idea to grope Sophie’s ass.  
  
He already had a charcoal pencil that would last the next couple of weeks, so he settled down with some paints and a blank piece of paper.  Parker was off in the corner with a notepad and a pencil, scrawling page after page of drawings; Hardison always sat on his own with coloring pages and crayons, while Sophie wrote poems.  Maggie floated around the room, mostly cozying up to Sophie, but she would drift off on her own at times.  
  
Today, he felt her sit down beside him, and he instinctively angled his shoulders away from her before relaxing; she moved into his personal space, her hair falling against his cheek.  
  
“What is that supposed to be?”  
  
He could hear the suppressed laughter in her voice and let a small smile creep onto his face.  “A tree.   And a dog.”  
  
“I see two very indistinct shapes.”  She dropped a paper into his lap.  “That’s what art is supposed to look like.”  
  
“I thought art is in the eye of the beholder?”  
  
“And that’s still true.”  
  
He looked down at her paper and bit back a laugh at the drawing she had given him; she had drawn an impressive likeness of him, but it was slightly exaggerated, including the large scowl on his face.  
  
“It’s very good.”  He handed it back to her.  “So you only came over here to rub your drawing in my face?”  
  
“I just wanted to see you, if only for a moment,” she murmured, moving in too close again, her hand drifting across his wrist.  “Sophie’s worried.”  
  
“We all are.”  
  
“More than normal.  She had a visit with the doctors yesterday.”  
  
Eliot didn’t miss her use of the plural and grimaced.  “And?  Anything more than the usual tests?”  
  
“There’s a procedure they’re going to do this weekend.  To all of you.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“If I had specifics, I would tell you.”  She glanced around nervously.  “I need to move on.  They get suspicious if I talk to any of you too long.”  
  
“Take care of yourself, Maggie.”  
  
“I try.”  
  
She left, and he pooled some more paint on his paper, spreading it around and creating a dark blob.

***************

Sterling didn’t even look up when his secretary stepped into his office.  “Are they here again?”  
  
“Yes, sir.  I tried to tell them that you were busy, but they insisted on seeing you.”  
  
“Well, send them in.”  As she started to leave, he said, “Oh, and, Linda, go ahead and take the rest of the day off.”  
  
“Do you not need me anymore today, sir?” Linda asked even as she was halfway out the door.  
  
“That’s right.”  He waved his hand and smiled.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll be fine.”  
  
She nodded and left; he tossed the file he had been examining into a drawer and leaned back in his chair as Erik Mynas walked into the room.  
  
“I thought I told you I would shoot you if you came back, Erik,” Sterling said, ignoring Erik’s held out hand and eyeing the two men flanking him.  “I see you brought two bodyguards as well.  How…charming.”  
  
“I don’t see a gun,” Erik responded.  He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Besides, you have yet to cooperate, so my business brings me back here.”  
  
“I have nothing to tell you.”  Sterling narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.  “I haven’t heard anything from Nathan Ford, and I don’t know where he is.”  
  
“I think you’re lying to me.”  
  
“Think all you want.  You don’t know a damn thing.”  
  
Erik sighed and shook his head.  “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but there’s nothing more I can do.  You will cooperate with us, or we might find a new home for your daughter.”  
  
“I’ll kill you first,” Sterling growled.  
  
“I’d like to see you try.”  Erik gave him a twisted smile.  “Give us what we need, or we’ll take Olivia into custody.”  
  
Sterling’s eyes flicked to his closed desk drawers; he stood up and leaned over the desk toward Erik.  “Get out of my office.”  
  
“Think about it, Jim.  You’re playing with powerful people here.”  
  
As he walked out the door, Erik whistled a few notes, his bodyguards falling in line behind him.  Sterling waited until they left to sink back into his chair.  His hands were trembling.  He dialed a number from muscle memory on his phone and waited for the other person to pick up.  
  
“This is Sterling.  You owe me a favor, and I’m calling it in now.”

***************

Parker smoothed her fingers along the wall, wincing a little at the pressure.  It turned out that getting rid of fingerprints was still painful even when it was done with a laser instead of a match.     
  
She had tried once with a box of matches when she was fourteen; Archie had been furious when he had caught her even though she hadn’t gotten all that far into it, really only giving her thumb a superficial burn.  After that, Archie made sure he emphasized that leaving fingerprints on a safe or a wall wasn’t such a big deal if no one knew how she got in or out.  Of course, the best thieves never left a trace, and she was the best.  
  
So, she didn’t mind about losing her fingerprints, not really.  After all, it only gave her an edge.  Not that she needed it.  Parker was never caught, not by anyone.  
  
The one exception was the team that brought her here, and that was because she was protecting Eliot since he couldn’t protect her.  He had still been nursing three broken ribs from the group that had stolen Hardison from them, and she had done her best with her taser.  
  
Still, this wasn’t so bad.  Her team was here, and she got to climb on things, even if was only during certain times of the day.  She missed her rigs, though, and stealing.  It had been a long time since she had held money in her hands or counted it or even smelled the paper.  
  
Her fingers slipped instinctively into her pocket and brushed against the last note she had pulled from Hardison’s pocket.  It wasn’t much, just a math equation, something to play with, like picking a lock.  She sometimes liked it better than a sentence about pretzels; it felt like this meant more in some way, even though that wasn’t exactly true.  
  
Paradoxes were nothing new for her, and she kind of liked collecting them anyway.  
  
She braided a section of her hair, wishing she could do it with Maggie’s hair instead.  Maggie always smelled nice, and she smiled, but Parker wasn’t really allowed to get near her.  There were secrets now because they were being watched.  She didn’t understand how spending time with Maggie would help the evil people find Nate, but she knew she should listen to Sophie about things like this.  
  
It wasn’t fair, and she got over it with a shrug and a backflip in the empty hallway.  
  
Guards didn’t follow them everywhere because there were cameras that tracked their every move.  She wandered around on her own because it was important to know where there were blind spots so she could hide.  She had been pacing the hallway for the past hour, observing the movement of the cameras and trying to find a large enough space outside of their radius.  
  
She grinned because it looked like she might have discovered one right outside a small closet.  She knelt on the floor and pulled out the two bobby pins she had managed to keep for herself, slipping them into the lock and fiddling with the mechanisms.  It wasn’t the same as cracking into a Glen Reader, but it would do; her time was off by a whole ten seconds since she hadn’t picked any lock in so long, but it was still under twenty seconds so she let it slide.  Sometimes records mattered less than just getting the job done.  
  
She took two quick steps inside and pulled the door shut, groping along the wall to get her bearings.  Her fingers stumbled across the light switch and she moved away from it.  The last time she had tried this, turning on the light had set off three different alarms.  What she needed to know now was if she had triggered any alarms just by getting into the closet.  
  
While she waited to see if any guards would come after her, she explored the shelves behind her, looking for anything useful.  She came up with some cleaning chemicals and, even better, tools; her mouth formed a satisfied smile, and the small pull on her lips felt strange.  
  
It looked like she had made it in without detection.  So, the next day, she pulled Sophie in there.  
  
“Parker, what the hell are you doing?”  
  
“Shh, people will hear you!”  Parker noticed Sophie searching for the light switch and grabbed her hand.  “Stop it.  Alarms will go off.”  
  
“So you just want to sit here in the dark.  With me.”  Sophie sighed and leaned against the wall.  “What am I doing here?”  
  
“It’s a secret place.  So we can talk.  I thought that would be better than the notes thing.”  
  
“Maybe.  Are you sure this is in a blind spot?”  
  
“I spent an hour or longer tracking all the cameras on this hall, and there’s not one in here.”  
  
“Okay.”  Sophie started looking around, her eyes adjusting the darkness, and she smiled.  “Good job, Parker.  I’ve missed you.”  
  
Parker shrugged and patted her shoulder.  “That’s nice.  Do your fingers still hurt?”  
  
“A little.  It’s mostly just annoying more than anything else.  Have the doctors talked to you about doing anything else?”  
  
“They make me climb on things for them once a week.  I don’t know what they want.  Do you?”  
  
“I can only guess.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“Don’t worry about it, Parker.”  Sophie ran her fingers through her hair and frowned for a moment.  “How long have we been here?”  
  
“In the closet?”  
  
“In the facility.”  
  
Parker chewed on her bottom lip as she counted through the days.  “Seven months and fifteen days.”  
  
“It feels like longer.”  
  
“Is Nate ever going to come for us?”  
  
“I don’t know, Parker.”  
  
“Do you think he’s forgotten about us?”  
  
“If he’s smart, he will.”  
  
Parker smiled a little.  “Well, we both know what that means.”  
  
“Yes, that’s true.”  Sophie tilted her head to the side, her lips turning up at the corners.  “You should bring Hardison in here.  I think he would like to talk to you.”  
  
Parker wanted to stay longer, curl into Sophie’s side and braid her hair and talk about pretzels and how being here felt suffocating, but something stopped her.  There was too much distance and wrongness, and she couldn’t remember how to form the right words or even reach out to touch Sophie.  
  
So she sat alone in the dark after Sophie left.

***************

Maggie preferred the openness of the art room.  It was one of the few places where it felt like being outside again, in a way, at least.  And, being able to draw was a nice change from the therapy sessions and the isolation of wandering around with no direction.  
  
She drew her pencil across the paper, filling in the contours of Sophie’s cheeks and jaw.  Sophie had lost weight, but she was still beautiful and Maggie liked to sketch her.  She shaded in the soft curls and the long lashes and the dark eyes that were more closed off than ever.  
  
Joseph thought Maggie was in love with Sophie since she had so many drawings of the woman; Maggie just thought Sophie made a good subject for art, like Parker in motion or Eliot when he was moving through the forms of whatever fighting technique he was practicing or Hardison gazing across the room at Parker.  And, she didn’t mind encouraging Joseph’s train of thought, especially since he seemed so taken with the idea.  
  
“I like that one.”  
  
Sophie’s murmur caught her off guard, but Maggie laughed and glanced over her shoulder at Sophie.  “Narcissistic much?”  
  
“Not at all.”  Sophie settled into the other chair at the table, stretching her long legs and smiling.  “I just appreciate talent when I see it.”  
  
“What plans are in your future?”  
  
“Not many, unfortunately.  What about you?”  
  
“I was thinking about picking flowers in the garden.”  
  
“For someone special?”  
  
Maggie smirked.  “Hoping I might give you some?”  
  
“Well, according to the guards, we have an epic love affair in the works.”  Sophie leaned across the table and pushed some of Maggie’s hair out of her face.  “Who am I to argue?”  
  
“Why?”

“Because lying is what I know how to do, and if people pay more attention to the lie than anything else, you’ve earned that much more control.”  
  
Sophie’s voice was measured and quiet and filled Maggie with warmth; turning her cheek into Sophie’s palm, Maggie gave her a small smile.  
  
“Good girl,” Sophie said softly.  
  
Then she moved closer and brushed her lips against Maggie’s.  Maggie started at the sudden contact then kissed back, the pressure soft and comforting.  Maggie was the one who pulled back first, pressing her lips to the corner of Sophie’s mouth and leaving the table.  
  
She didn’t miss the knowing looks passed between the guards as she walked out of the room, and she ignored them because it was all only a game anyway.  She still couldn’t keep from thinking about how she wished the kiss was from someone else.  A different sort of savior.

***************

“Girl, what exactly are we doing here?”  
  
Hardison was happy to be able to talk to Parker; no, ecstatic would be more like it.  During the time they had been on the run with Eliot, their relationship had changed, and he knew what her lips tasted like, the little sounds she made when his mouth hit that place on her collarbone, and there had been nothing more frustrating than seeing her and not being able to touch her.  
  
Now, he didn’t know what to do.  He started to reach out to her, and she shied away before forcing herself to stay still so his hand could land on her arm.  
  
“I found it last week.  Sophie said I should bring you here.”  
  
“What for?”  
  
“To talk?”  Parker drew her eyebrows together and crossed her arms over her chest.  “I like the math problems the best.”  
  
“Better than the poetry?”  
  
She snorted, and he grinned; he had figured she wouldn’t really appreciate the poetry, but he liked trying different things with her.  He never knew what might catch her fancy.  
  
“We don’t have to talk.  We can just sit here.”  
  
“And do what?”  
  
“I don’t know?  Whatever you want, Parker.  I’m happy just being here with you.”  
  
Her face softened at that, and he really wished they could turn on the light because the shadows only showed so much.  She moved suddenly into his space, backing him up against the wall and draping her arms over his shoulders in an awkward movement.  
  
“What you doing?”  
  
“I want…to feel something.”  Her breath drifted against his lips as she leaned closer.  “Alec, I don’t remember, and I want to.”  
  
“What don’t you remember?”  He placed trembling hands on her waist and resisted the urge to pull her into him.  
  
She traced her fingers along his forehead, down the sides of his face, across his cheeks.  “What it’s like to be safe.  Happy.”  
  
Rage flashed behind his vision for a moment, and he pushed it back because there was nothing he could _do_ and he hated it.  She tilted her chin up and pressed her mouth against his; his fingers tightened reflexively around her then relaxed as he kissed her.  
  
She still tasted like fortune cookies and chocolate.  Parker made a sound in the back of her throat that might have been a whimper when he grazed her bottom lip with his teeth, his tongue immediately soothing the sting.  It was too soon when she slipped out of his grasp, the pressure of her mouth suddenly gone and the chill of the air conditioning a shock.  
  
He wanted to pull her back to him, but the moment was gone and her face was blank again.  He wanted to curse and hit something and steal her away; he just stood still while she left the closet.


	3. home again before this time next year

**Chapter Three:  home again before this time next year**   
_"I close my eyes and I can see you...  
I close my eyes and I can feel you here.  
God willin' and the creek don't rise,  
I'll be home again before this time next year.  
Though I fear this fever won't break..."  
\- “ **God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise” by Ray Lamontagne and The Pariah Dogs**_

_**  
** _

Hardison vibrated with nervous energy, pacing the length of Nate’s apartment while Parker watched him.  
  
“They’ll be back soon,” she said as she fiddled with one of her locks.  “We haven’t started the job yet.”  
  
“This is serious, Parker.  You get that?  Life or death serious.”  He shook his head.  “Why don’t we keep the comms in all the time?”  
  
“Because it’s an invasion of other people’s privacy, which is wrong.”  She flipped her hair over her shoulder and smirked.  “At least, that’s what Sophie said.”  
  
“Still, where are they?”  
  
“You should learn how to have some patience,” Eliot said as he walked in the door.  “Nate and Sophie are right behind me.”  
  
Sophie came in a moment later, holding Nate’s hand.  Hardison nodded his head at the two of them and pulled up photos and files from their newest job.  Nate settled into his chair beside Sophie, resting his hand on her thigh.  
  
Hardison eyed them.  “Seriously?”  
  
“What?  You want us to fight instead?” Nate challenged back.  
  
“Just get on with it.  What the hell are we even doing here?” Eliot growled, leaning forward.  
  
“Okay, so I was doing some research into the Mynas Institute, and I found some hinky stuff.”  
  
“What do you mean?  Dirty money?  Deals with the mob?  Some sort of weird sex scandal?”  Sophie raised her eyebrows.  “It can’t be anything we haven’t dealt with before.”  
  
“They have files on us.”  Hardison pointed his remote at the screens.  “Plus, there’s a lot of weird stuff, like experiments on people, going on.”  
  
“So, we were recruited for this job to entrap us?”  Nate stood up and approached the screens.  “Is there anything out there with an explanation?”  
  
“Nothing.”  Hardison crossed his arms across his chest.  “There are some underground rumors out there that this dude, Erik Mynas, is being funded by some of the most powerful governments to create a sort-of ‘super-team’ they can use.”  
  
“That’s ridiculous, though.  It’s like a plot from a bad science fiction movie,” Sophie protested.  She turned to Eliot.  “Do you know anything about this?”  
  
“A guy I used to work with mentioned to keep an ear out because there was something big going down soon.  This might be what he was talking about.”  
  
“So, what do we do?” Parker asked, looking from Nate to Hardison.  “If they’re after us, do we run?”  
  
“They’ve already made an aggressive first play,” Nate murmured.  “If we don’t bite, then they’ll come after us.”  
  
“What do you want us to do, then?” Eliot leaned back in his chair.  
  
“We’ll have to go to ground.”  Sophie sighed.  “Do you want us to split up?”  
  
“Do we have to?”  Parker frowned and twisted the ends of her hair around her fingers.  “I don’t like it when we’re not together.”  
  
“Self-preservation, Parker.  If we’re all in the same place, we’re easier targets,” Eliot explained.  “Doesn’t mean we all have to go our separate ways.”  
  
Hardison shrugged and blacked out the screens.  “Look, I can secure safe places for us to go, identities that we can burn through, safe financial sources, all that jazz.  I just need a couple of days.”  
  
“Okay.  Everyone, stay close and don’t do anything that could be considered unnecessarily risky.”  Nate eyed Parker fidgeting and said, “That means no jumping off any buildings, Parker.”  
  
“I’ll get on that, man.”  Hardison moved to the table and opened his laptop.  
  
Eliot started for the door.  “I’ll check with my sources and see if they know anything.  I’ll be around.”  
  
Parker joined Hardison at the table and started picking her lock again.  Sophie glanced at the pair and then looked back at Nate.  He moved to her side and pressed a kiss to her forehead.  
  
“Not exactly what I thought would happen when I suggested to you we should take a vacation.”  She gave him a small smile and slid off her chair.  “So, act like normal?”  
  
“As much as we can.”  
  
“Okay, then.  Do you want me to stay here?”  
  
“If you don’t mind.”  
  
She kissed him and headed to the kitchen.  “Don’t be silly.  Now, what do you want for lunch?”  
  
“Macaroni and cheese,” Parker called from the table.  
  
“Bacon grilled cheese,” Hardison added in.  
  
Sophie raised an eyebrow.  “Pick one.  I’m not a short-order cook.”  
  
“Macaroni and cheese,” Hardison said, brushing his hand against Parker’s.  
  
Sophie suppressed a smile and started pulling out the ingredients she needed while Nate moved around her, pouring drinks for both of them.  For once, she didn’t remark on the alcohol so early in the day; if anything, they all needed it.

***************

Nate looked around the small circle they had formed in the center of his apartment.  Hardison handed out small packets to each of them and stepped back into the formation.  
  
“Those have all the identities you need.  I’ve set up three flights that will take you through London, Tokyo, and then to Paris.  You have an identity for each flight, and your final destination is Italy where I’ve set up for you to rent a house.  Your accounts are in there.  Strip them dry the second you hit the ground in Paris because I don’t know if these people will be able to follow us.”  Hardison rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands into his pockets.  “Also, there’s a burner phone with the number for our phone already saved in it.”  
  
“Six months before any contact,” Nate interjected quietly.  “Anything else?”  
  
“The three of you need to spread out when you’re in a confined area together.  You’ll look suspicious otherwise,” Sophie said, looking at Eliot.  “Nate and I will get a gun for protection.  I assume you all can take care of yourselves.”  
  
“Where are we going?” Parker asked as she tapped her package against her fingers.  
  
“Toronto, Salvador, Sydney, then Hong Kong.  Plan is to end up in Dubai.”  He sighed.  “Nate, your and Sophie’s flight leaves in a couple of hours.  Probably should head out.”  
  
Sophie chewed on her bottom lip and looked at Nate.  Nate raised his hand in a gesture to pat Eliot on the shoulder, and Parker suddenly launched herself across the circle at Sophie, pulling her into a tight hug.  
  
“I’ll miss you,” Sophie said softly, her voice breaking.  
  
She stepped back after a moment then moved to Hardison while Parker and Eliot watched.  Sophie hugged Eliot last, lingering with him a little when he whispered something in her ear.  Sophie moved back to Nate’s side, and the other three lined up across from them.  
  
Nate glanced over at her and saw that she was holding back tears; he grabbed his bag and started for the door.  
  
“Try to be careful.  All of you.”  He smiled at them and waited for Sophie to join him.  
  
As they walked out of his apartment, she slipped her hand in his.

***************

“Why are you still awake?”  
  
Eliot started, grabbing the knife he had just been cleaning before registering that it was Parker standing behind him.  
  
“Damn it, Parker, don’t sneak up on me.”  He put the knife down.  “Why aren’t you with Hardison?”  
  
“I woke up and saw the light on.  Thought you might be lonely.”  She sat down beside him.  
  
He passed her the lock she had been fiddling with earlier and selected another knife.  “Something bothering you?”  
  
“Not really.  I just don’t like it here.”  
  
She bent over the lock, and he shrugged; he stood up and moved to the small kitchen to grab a bag of gummi bears and an apple.  
  
“Here.”  He tossed the bag to her and settled back down in his chair.  
  
“You know, sugar is bad for you,” she said quietly, smirking as she opened the candy and threw a few into her mouth.  
  
He took a huge bite out of his apple.  “What you do with your body is your own business.  You’re already sleeping with Hardison.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  She furrowed her eyebrows and poked at her lock.  “Sex is actually very good for stress relief and it burns calories.”  
  
“That’s not…just…forget it, Parker,” he grumbled.  
  
“Do you miss them?”  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“A little bit.  I’m just used to them being…around.”  
  
He smiled a little at that and nodded.  “I know what you mean.  How does Hardison feel about it?”  
  
“He doesn’t talk about it.  Not really.”  She sighed, rocking back in her chair, the legs scraping against the floor.  “He worries, though.”  
  
“We all do.”  
  
She munched on the gummi bears and played more with her lock until it clicked open.  He finished rubbing his knife clean and set it down with the rest of his collection.  
  
“Hiding out makes it feel like we’re on the losing end.”  
  
Her voice was quiet; he pushed his hair out of his eyes and re-situated in his chair.  
  
“That’d be because we are.”  
  
Her gaze skittered from his face to the length of the counter as she said, “Well, I guess that makes sense.”  
  
“We’re doing what we can.”  
  
“A lot of good that will do when they take us away.”  
  
He leaned on the counter and touched her arm, his fingers only a light pressure on her skin.  She flinched at the contact, but she didn’t pull away.  
  
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you and Hardison stay safe.  I promise.”  
  
“But what about you?”  She tilted her head to the side and studied him.  “What if they get you?”  
  
“I’ll be okay.  It’s what I do.”  
  
She slipped out of her chair and started to go back to bed.  She paused on her way out the door and whirled around, grabbing onto Eliot in a fierce hug.  She buried her nose into his neck, and then she was gone.  He listened to the door close behind her and started putting away his knives, the blades gleaming in the dim room.

***************

“Soph, where are you?”  
  
Sophie looked up from the sinkful of dishes she was working on and called, “I’m in the kitchen, Nate.”  
  
He walked through the door, and she smiled at him; the past couple of months they had spent in Italy had resulted in him darkening up a bit, and she found it impossibly sexy.  He moved behind her and pressed a kiss to her neck as she scrubbed at a pot.  
  
“It’s a quiet day out there.  We should go for a walk.”  
  
“I’m busy,” she murmured, trying to ignore him as he moved his mouth up to her jaw.  
  
He pulled her away from the sink, grabbing a dish towel and wiping her hands clean.  “The dishes can wait.”  
  
“They’ve been waiting for the past week.”  
  
“When did you turn into a domestic woman?” he teased.  
  
She rolled her eyes and let him pull her to the door.  “I take offense to that.”  
  
He turned around and pulled her into a kiss before pushing the door open.  “I’m not very worried.”  
  
She laced her fingers through his and drifted closer to his side; the breeze was colder than she had expected, and it went right through her thin cotton dress.  He smiled at her and wrapped his arm around her waist as they walked to the quiet street.  
  
“Have people stopped talking about us?” she asked as they wandered along the pavement.  
  
He shook his head.  “Well, in a small town, people always talk about you.  It’s nothing to be worried about.”  
  
“If you say so.”  
  
He just leaned over and kissed the side of her head; she smiled at that.  One of the only good things to come out of being on the run was that he had become much more affectionate, constantly touching her and surprising her with small presents.  She was enjoying it probably much more than she should.  
  
He stopped short when they reached the park.  “So, I have a reason for bringing you here.”  
  
She eyed the park and the way he was shifting his feet; she slipped out of his grasp.  “Nathan Ford, you had better not be proposing to me.”  
  
“What would you do if I was?”  
  
“Refuse.”  
  
He laughed a little and motioned to a bench nearby, moving to sit down.  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.  I’m not going to propose.”  
  
“Then what are we doing here?”  
  
“Well, I do want to give you this.”  He fumbled as he reached into his left pocket and pulled out a small box.  He opened it to reveal a small sapphire ring.  “It’s not an engagement ring or anything.  I just saw it in the jewelry store and thought of you.”  
  
She reached out and touched it, her breath catching in her throat.  “It’s gorgeous.  But, why?”  
  
“It’s a compromise, of sorts.  Neither of us really want to get married, at least not now.  But I wanted to give you something.”  
  
“Should I give you something?”  
  
“If you want to.”  
  
“It is a promise, though, isn’t it?”  She smiled shyly at him and ducked her head.  “I’m not dumb enough for you to con me into this.”  
  
He sighed and slipped the ring out of the box, holding it out to her.  “It’s my commitment to you, Soph.  Just…”  
  
“Such a Catholic,” she murmured, moving closer and kissing him.  When she pulled away, she said, “I’ll let you put it on my left hand.”  
  
He grinned, his face lighting up, and he took her left hand in his, slipping it on her ring finger; the band was cool against her skin.  He threaded his fingers through her dark hair and pressed his lips to hers.  She slid closer to him and enjoyed the feeling of pretending like this was normal.

***************

When Hardison opened his eyes, he closed them again immediately in response to the pounding in his head.  He rolled his tongue around his mouth, grimacing at the dryness and the fact that his tongue felt three sizes too big.  Groaning, he sat up and slit his eyes open so he could survey his surroundings.  
  
He was in a stark white room on a bed with white, papery sheets like in a hospital, and the fluorescent light was making his headache worse.  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up; he swayed from the nausea but managed to stay on his feet.  
  
He didn’t have a large amount of floor space, just enough for the bed and a small side table.  Probably about eight by ten feet if he had to guess.  They had changed his clothes, and the sweatpants were chafing him in places he didn’t really appreciate.  The shirt, on the other hand, was really soft if a little too thin for the ridiculously cold air blowing through the small vent right above the door.  
  
Licking his lips, he wished for a glass of water, but he walked the length of the wall, feeling the surface as he looked around for any sort of implement to use to pick the lock.  Well, okay, he didn’t know how to pick locks, but he hated sitting still.  Besides, if he was trying to break out, maybe someone would start paying attention to him and bring him some damn water.  
  
He was just reaching for the doorknob when the door swung open, almost hitting him in the face.  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were right there.”  The woman was dressed in pale blue scrubs, and she looked to be in her early twenties.  
  
He shook his head, wincing at the increase in pain.  “Naw, it’s cool.”  
  
She closed the door behind her and took him by the arm, leading him back to the bed.  She prodded his chest, using just enough force to indicate she wanted him to sit, and she produced a bottle of water from somewhere unseen, along with two small pink pills.  
  
He eyed the medication with suspicion.  “What are those for?”  
  
“They’ll help with the headache and send you to sleep,” she explained, grabbing his hand and dumping them into his palm.  She unscrewed the bottle cap and handed the water off to him.  “They won’t hurt you.”  
  
“I don’t want to go back to sleep.”  
  
“Doctor’s orders, I’m afraid.  The medicine they gave you earlier wore off faster than anticipated, and you need time to recover from your journey.”  
  
He snorted.  “You mean the attack where I ended up being taken down by a taser and a hit to the head.”  
  
“My job is not to endorse the policies of the retrieval team but to make sure you take the medication you need and stay healthy.”  The smile on her face turned steely as she crossed her arms over her chest.  “Now, you can take those pills yourself, or I can call an orderly in here to tie you down so we can administer the same medicine intravenously.”  
  
He considered throwing the pills across the room for a moment; however, he was exhausted and not in the mood to struggle with anyone else.  Rolling his eyes, he popped the pills into his mouth and gulped down some water.  The world immediately got a little fuzzier, and she took the water from him before he was finished.  
  
“Hey, I’m still thirsty.”  He was slurring his words too much, and when he tried to lunge after the bottle, he ended up falling on his side to the bed.  
  
He heard the click of the door closing, so that meant he was alone.  The dizziness felt oddly familiar, like when he was trapped in that dark, enclosed space and woke up before someone jabbed him in the upper arm with a needle.  He rubbed at the spot, then, and blinked.  
  
 _“Eliot, take Parker and go!  You have to get out of here!”_  
  
 _Parker shook her head and brandished her taser.  “We’re not leaving you!”_  
  
 _Eliot just bent over, pressing against where one of his ribs had just broken.  Hardison’s fingers flew over his phone keyboard; he was determined to make sure they would be safe._  
  
 _“Listen, we aren’t all going to make it out of this.”  Hardison tried to grab Parker’s hand, but she jerked away from him.  “There are too many of them, and Eliot’s already injured.”_  
  
 _“Which is why I should stay behind,” Eliot growled.  “I’m already halfway down.”_  
  
 _“No!”  Parker was fighting back tears and tugging on Eliot’s arm.  “We can still make it.”_  
  
 _Hardison pushed his phone into Eliot’s pocket and stood up.  “I’ve got the two of you plane tickets to get you out.  They’ll be waiting for you at the airport.  Use the identities I set up for this type of emergency.”_  
  
 _The door was breaking down, and Hardison spun around to face whoever was going to come through._  
  
 _“There’s only a small window of time here,” he said insistently.  “I’ll distract them.”_  
  
 _“Can’t let you do this,” Eliot snapped.  “Not your job.”_  
  
 _“Take care of her.”_  
  
 _“I’m right here!”  Parker stamped her foot and poked Hardison hard in the chest.  “You don’t get to tell me what to do!”_  
  
 _The door crashed open, then, and armed men poured through.  Hardison couldn’t even count them all, though it looked to be more than twenty.  He was quickly surrounded and cut off from the others; he could hear Eliot’s grunts of pain and the distinctive crack of bone.  He tried to get in a few good punches, but the men were moving so fast, and then he was immobilized by pain, his eyes rolling back into his head as he fell to the ground.  When the electricity stopped coursing through his body, he tried to get up on trembling limbs._  
  
 _He could hear Parker yelling something, but he couldn’t see her, and then he heard Eliot growl out, “Damn it, Hardison!”_  
  
 _There was more yelling and the sound of fighting, and he focused on trying to stand back up._  
  
 _“Hey, stay down!”_  
  
 _Then something very hard cracked the back of his head, and he blacked out._  
  
He shivered as cold air started blowing out of the vent again; black dots appeared on the edges of his vision.  The throbbing in his head started to fade, and he closed his eyes. 

***************

Nate knew something was wrong the instant he stepped onto the street.  The neighbors were across from his house, congregated in a small, tight group.  He launched into a run, skidding to a stop in front of the house, whirling around to face the people looking at him with fearful suspicion.  
  
“What happened?” He knew he was doing nothing to assuage their apprehension, but Sophie had been there alone, and he needed information.  
  
“Some men went in there,” someone finally volunteered; Nate had to struggle to pay attention because they were speaking in Italian, and he had never been as fluent as Sophie.  
  
“And?”  
  
“We heard gunshots.”  
  
Nate didn’t wait for anymore explanations; he sprinted to the house and burst through the front door.  
  
“Sophie!  Sophie, where are you?”  He saw the chaos that clearly spoke of a struggle, but he continued going through the house, calling Sophie’s name.  
  
When only silence answered him, he turned to survey the torn apart kitchen.  The glint of sunlight bouncing off of something shiny caught his attention, and he strode to the middle of the room.  He bent over and picked up with trembling fingers the sapphire ring he had given to Sophie only a few weeks earlier; he balled his hands into fists and moved to the next room.  
  
He found two dead bodies there.  He didn’t check for pulses because there was an immense amount of blood pooling under them; he saw the small gun he and Sophie had kept in the kitchen drawer and checked the magazine.  There were four bullets missing.  He looked around the room, mapping out where the stray bullets could be from the position of the bodies and the gun.  He found the marks in the far wall.  
  
There was no evidence that she was hurt, but he couldn’t be sure.  And, he didn’t know where these people were now, if they were planning on coming back for him.  Not to mention the law enforcement that would be swooping down on the house at any second to investigate the shooting.  
  
He felt cold and distant, slipping back into planning mode because he couldn’t, wouldn’t think about if Sophie was all right.  He knew she was.  He ignored the doubts niggling in the back of his mind and moved on autopilot, grabbing the bag he kept packed.  He found the photo album he and Sophie had started in a fit of sentimentality and pulled out one picture; they were smiling in it, and he remembered that day, full of sunlight and flirting and pretending like they were normal.  He shoved the picture into his pocket and threw some wood into the fireplace, lighting matches and shoving them in there in the hopes of creating a quick blaze.  
  
When the flames started catching, he pulled out the photos one by one and tossed them in.  He didn’t wait to watch them burn.  He got up, took his bag, and walked out, his brain already working out where to go next and what the first step in getting revenge would be.

***************

Eliot cursed as he paced the small room he had been backed into.  He had gotten sloppy since they had taken Parker away, and he knew he was on the losing end of this.  He didn’t have the ability to fight his way past twenty or more guys who all had guns trained on him.  
  
He knew the guns were equipped with tranquilizer darts since that was how they had taken out Parker; it didn’t help that it had taken those goons less than a week to catch up with them.  
  
As it was, he didn’t have many options; there were innocent people out there who were going to be caught in the crossfire, and with the fact that he was more than likely going to lose this battle, he didn’t want anyone to get hurt in the process.  
  
He could hear them beating on the other side of the door, and he yanked it open, reaching out and grabbing the first guy he saw, wrenching him inside and breaking his neck.  He slammed the door back closed, but one man got his arm hooked around the frame; from the crack of bone, it looked like his arm broke for all his trouble.  
  
However, with the opening left behind, the men swarmed through, trampling their own man in the process.  Eliot braced himself against the wall, blocking a few punches before one landed in his gut.  He grunted and pulled the guy in to knock him out.  He didn’t manage it because someone snuck up on his side and slammed his barrel against Eliot’s neck.  
  
Eliot dropped to his knees, too stunned by the hit to block the next one that cracked right along one of his just-healed ribs.  Black dots appeared in his vision, and he tried to blink them away.  
  
A moment later, he felt the sting of a dart piercing his neck, and he closed his eyes.  It was over.


	4. looking out on another day

 

**Chapter Four:  looking on another day**   
_"Does anybody know_   
_If we're looking out on the day_   
_Of another dream?_

_If you can't get what you want  
Then you come with me_"  
 ** _\- “On Melancholy Hill” by The Gorillaz_**

**_  
_ **

“Who do you want me to be?”  
  
It wasn’t quite the answer Joseph was expecting when he asked for Sophie’s name, but from the satisfied smile on her face, it looked like he might be forced to play along.  He shifted in his seat and sighed, tilting his head as he mentally flicked through the various identities she had played out during their sessions.  
  
“Michelle.  She seemed like an interesting character.”  
  
It was amazing to watch her melt into the persona, her body language shifting just enough to let him know that something was different, the look on her face going from predatory to a bright smile.  
  
“I did not think you wanted to see me again,” she said, the French accent rolling off her tongue.  
  
“Of course I did.”  He fumbled for his pencil and leaned back into his chair.  “Now, let’s get started.”  
  
“Oh, you want me to dance for you now?”  She stood in a liquid movement, walking towards him, her hips swaying.  “You are impatient today.”  
  
He swallowed hard as she bent over, her nose almost brushing against his.  Her lips curved into a seductive smirk, and she settled into his lap, her legs straddling his thighs.  
  
“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” he stammered.  
  
He tried to push her off, but she grabbed his hands and placed them on her hips, gyrating a little and scooting closer.  
  
“But this is what I do.”  
  
She rolled her hips into his, and he couldn’t help groaning in the back of his throat, his body already starting to respond to her weight against him.  She draped her arms around his neck and slid even closer until she was flush against him, her hips moving in a constant, torturous slow rhythm.  
  
Her lips brushed against his ear as she murmured, “You wanted me to do this, even if you would never say it.”  
  
“No.”  But it came out half-strangled, and the way his pants were tenting was a clear indication he was lying.  
  
“Do not lie to me.  You are not very good at it.”  She bent back at that moment in a graceful movement that shoved her breasts into his face and then straightened up, her body moving a little faster against him.  “You see, I know things about you.  About how much you want me.”  
  
The voice was still tinged with Michelle’s thick accent, but the words were what he knew would come out of Sophie’s mouth.  That didn’t stop him from thrusting up into her rocking hips.  
  
“You come in here, thinking you know me, thinking you can manipulate me.  But, you cannot because you do not understand how to control me.  That is what this all is.  Sex, your therapy sessions, this damn place.”  
  
She was gone in an instant, and when he opened his eyes to look up at her, she grinned.  
  
“It is all about who has control and who does not.”  
  
He blinked because all he could think about was the fact she was about to leave him with a huge hard-on and a professional mess once anyone got a look at this tape.  
  
“I don’t understand.”  
  
She flashed him a smile, all teeth that chilled him to the bone.  “Of course you do not.”  
  
Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she sauntered out of the room; he slumped back in his chair and breathed slowly until his brain started functioning again.  
  
As her words echoed in his head, he started to smile.

***************

Parker was used to being ignored.  It came from years of living in bad foster homes and then Archie’s many absences after he took her on.  It made her a better thief, and it also meant she heard a lot that people didn’t think she did.  
  
She looped her legs around the thick pole and swung back until she could grab the ledge, dangling from it; she slid her hands along the cool metal and flipped them so she could turn her body around and pull herself up.  
  
“Impressive.”  
  
There were two doctors observing her as well as the mandatory five guards.  This happened every week, but the doctors never talked much.  
  
“Even without any aid, she can move like that.  Imagine what she could do if her hands were different.”  
  
Parker gritted her teeth and flung herself off the ledge, stretching her body out in the air and then curling into a ball; her hands hit the ground first, and she used her momentum to roll and come out on her feet.  Her palms stung.  She ignored that and took off at a run, launching into a series of a few flips.  
  
She crouched down and sprung up onto the lowest ledge.  She used the small grips jutting out of the wall to clamber up to the ceiling.  She stayed there for a little while, just listening.  
  
“Would we have to change the texture of her skin to do that?”  
  
“We’ll need to experiment further to be sure, but I don’t think it would require a change on her entire hand.”  
  
“She’s incredibly strong already.  Should we start her on a regimen of steroids?”  
  
“I think so.  If we go ahead and stabilize that part of her body, then we won’t have to worry about that.”  
  
Parker narrowed her eyes and grabbed onto the nearest pole, sliding down it a little and wrapping her legs around the next one.  She hung there for a moment, her hands reaching for the floor, before loosening her muscles enough to slip down the pole until her fingers rested against the floor.  
  
She missed air ducts, but they didn’t want for her to disappear into small spaces where they couldn’t see her.  
  
One of the doctors motioned to the guards.  “We’re done with her for the day.  Thank you.”  
  
She watched the doctors leave the room, and she sighed when the guards stepped closer.  She flipped her legs over her head and walked to the door all in one fluid movement, the guards trailing behind her. 

***************

Sterling didn’t even look up from his work when Erik strode into his office.  “What can I do for you today?”  
  
“I’m here to offer you one last chance to work with me.”  Erik grinned and rocked back on his heels.  “So what do you say?”  
  
Sterling smirked and closed the file he had been looking at.  “I’m afraid I will be unable to offer my assistance to your little project.”  
  
“That’s too bad.  I’ll make sure your daughter knows that her father cares more about the welfare of criminals than hers.”  
  
“Ah, I wasn’t done,” Sterling said, raising a hand and motioning a man in a dark suit forward.  “Erik, I would like for you to meet my good friend, Christopher.”  
  
“What the hell does he have to do with anything?”  
  
“He’s my new bodyguard, and he has a whole group of them that are currently keeping watch over Olivia.  So don’t think you can send one of your little teams after her without severe repercussions.”  
  
“Are you threatening me, Sterling?”  Erik’s face twisted in anger as he slammed his palms against the desk, leaning forward.  “Do you really think you can play these stupid little games with me?”  
  
“I’m betting on it, yes,” Sterling replied calmly.  “The first mistake you made was threatening my daughter.  Please don’t make another by assuming that I’m not serious about this.”  
  
“This is your last chance, Sterling.”  
  
“And this is your last chance to get out of my office before your kneecap has a tragic accident.  Christopher here is very effective at doing his job.”  
  
Sterling leaned back in his chair and waved his fingers at Erik in a goodbye.  Erik straightened up, fixing his suit jacket, and he turned on his heel.  Sterling waited until the door closed behind Erik to let his brow crease with worry.  
  
“They are the best, right, Christopher?”  
  
Christopher smiled.  “The favor I owe you is very large, Jim.  My men will not let anything happen to her.  I can promise that.”  
  
“Go stay with her and send someone else to me.  I’d feel better if you were there.”  
  
“We can do the swap this evening when you go home.”  
  
“Good, good.  Now we just need the last piece of this puzzle.”  
  
“What would that be?”  
  
Sterling’s eyes roamed over the map on his desk and the files he had pulled from Interpol and various other sources through less-than-legal means.  
  
“Nathan Ford.”

***************

Joseph watched Erik pace the length of the control room and wiped his palms against his pants.  They had just finished playing back the footage of his latest session with Sophie, and it was the calm before the storm.  
  
“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” Erik finally spat out, whirling around to face Joseph.  “We brought you here to find out what you can about them and Nathan Ford.  Not to try to get lucky.”  
  
“You can see from the tape that I didn’t instigate anything,” Joseph replied in a weak voice.  
  
“You didn’t exactly push her off of you, either.  I shouldn’t have expected anything different from you, though, considering that you were about to lose your license over an affair with a patient.”  
  
“You still took me on.  You obviously thought I was qualified enough for the job.”  
  
“You were the only one we could get.”  Erik stopped his pacing and looked back at the screens.  “At least, the only one with the qualifications we needed.”  
  
“Are you implying that I don’t have morals?”  
  
“You don’t.  If you did, you would have never fucked a patient.”  
  
“A momentary lapse of judgment.”  
  
“That lasted for ten months.  Has your wife left you, by the way?”  
  
Joseph shook his head.  “She likes holding this over my head.  Besides, she would have to go back to work if we got a divorce.”  
  
“Well, have you found out anything useful?  It’s been a year.”  Erik moved to the control panel and played with the buttons until he pulled up footage from the last group session.  “I would think that’s enough time to crack them somehow.”  
  
“Parker twitches if you bring up her past, Hardison, or being abandoned by her team.  Hardison is lying through his teeth, but he knows the lie so well that it’s impossible for me to find fallacies in it. Eliot is more than likely lying, but he’s not going to crack anytime soon.  Sophie, well, I’ve made absolutely no progress with her.”  Joseph settled back into his chair.  “I would almost say she was insane if I didn’t know better.”  
  
Erik frowned.  “What makes you think she isn’t?”  
  
“Lying is the way she makes her living.  Besides, she’s carrying on an affair with Maggie Collins.  For every piece of her life we try to control, she finds a way to take some back.”  
  
“What are you going to do to get the answers we need?”  
  
Joseph smiled and pointed to the board where all of their pictures were placed, his focus lingering on Sophie’s.  “We completely strip them of control over their lives.”  
  
“And?  How should we do that?”  Erik sighed and started pacing again with his irritation.  “I need results soon, or it’s my neck on the line.”  
  
“Isolate Parker completely from everyone around her.  She’ll start to turn feral, but she’ll be much easier to break.  Force Eliot to lose control against someone.  Let him kill again.  Reverting back to who he used to be will upset his equilibrium.  Hardison is already on the edge.  He really only needs a push.”  Joseph clasped his hands together and smiled.  “As for Miss Devereaux, we need to strip her of her identity.  Go ahead with the surgery.”  
  
“Do you think they’ll be able to lead you to Ford after that?”  Erik’s eyes lit up and a smile danced across his face.  
  
“You’ll have everything you need.”

***************

Maggie crawled into bed beside Sophie, wrapping her arms around Sophie’s waist.  
  
“No one’s seen Parker for three days,” she said softly as Sophie shifted in the small space.  “Do you think she escaped?”  
  
“It’s a new experiment.  They’re isolating her.”  
  
Sophie traced her fingers down Maggie’s arm and pressed a kiss to her cheek.  Maggie smiled a little, hooking her foot around Sophie’s nearest leg and pulling her a little closer.  
  
“How do you know that?”  
  
“Joseph told me.  Apparently, it’s not a secret.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  Sophie nuzzled her nose into Maggie’s neck.  “I’m not a mind reader.”  
  
“Could have fooled me.”  
  
“Don’t be a smartass.”  
  
Maggie laughed a little.  “They’re not going to take you away from me, are they?”  
  
“I don’t think so.  Are you that attached already?”  Sophie pressed her lips against Maggie’s neck.  
  
“Maybe you shouldn’t think so much of yourself,” Maggie replied, playing a little with Sophie’s thick hair.  “But, these people are going to do something to you.”  
  
Sophie sighed.  “I’ve had to see the doctors more this week.  They’ve been talking about surgery.”  
  
“What kind?”  
  
“I don’t have the details.”  
  
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”  
  
Sophie didn’t answer; she scratched her nails along Maggie’s back through the thin material of her shirt.  Maggie hummed approvingly at that and let her grip on Sophie’s waist loosen a little bit.  
  
“Sophie?”  
  
“It’s sweet that you trust me so much.”  
  
Maggie frowned.  “So you are lying to me.”  
  
“I’m keeping a secret.”  
  
“Soph…”  
  
“Don’t.”  Sophie rolled onto her back and crossed her arms over her chest.  “I’m trying to do the right thing.”  
  
“By not telling me anything?”  
  
“The less you know sometimes, the better off you are.  Don’t worry, Maggie.  I’m going to be all right.”  
  
Maggie sat up and tilted her head to the side as she traced her fingers along Sophie’s cheek.  “That is a lie.”  
  
She slid out of the bed and moved to her own.  The room felt a little colder, but she was used to that after this nightly routine.  She listened as Sophie turned onto her side and faced the wall.  Maggie huddled into her own body and closed her eyes.

****************

Eliot shrugged his shoulders as the doctor stepped away, a used syringe in his hands; this was a daily procedure now, and he could already feel the added bulk the steroids were forcing his body to take on.  
  
This was something new.  He had heard the doctors talking about a drug, something about increasing his pain threshold.  A grim smile spread over his face; if that was true, his pain tolerance was going to be ridiculous.  
  
A nurse moved to his side and pushed him down into a chair.  He obeyed without any hesitation, which was a worrying impulse.  This was all only conditioning after all, but it had been a very long time since he had responded so willingly to another’s directions.  
  
He was handed a cup of water and a few word puzzles to play with.  He heard the doctor step out of the room, and even as he worked on his puzzles, he tracked the two nurses and three guards in the room by the sound of their footsteps and conversations.  
  
No stint in captivity was going to make him completely lose his edge.  
  
He estimated that it was about thirty minutes later when the two doctors came back with a couple of orderlies lugging a block of cement behind them.  They settled the block with a dull thud on the white floor and left.  
  
“Mr. Spencer, we have a few tests we would like to conduct now.”  
  
The formality of this place still got to him sometimes, but Eliot stood up and turned in a fluid motion; an added benefit of whatever they were putting into his system was the increased ease of the way his body responded to his mental commands.  
  
He walked to the stand in front of the doctors, noting the way the guards at the door rested their fingers on their guns’ triggers.  He scoffed internally at their paranoia.  
  
“What do you want me to do?”  
  
The taller doctor motioned to the cement block and stepped back.  “Strike the block with the heel of your hand as hard as you can.”  
  
“I could damage my hand permanently if I do that,” Eliot protested.  
  
“Nonsense.  You know how to handle your body and prevent damage.  Now, go ahead.”  
  
Eliot huffed at the fact that his concerns were ignored, but they were right.  Apparently they had been paying attention.  He took a deep breath and drove his hand against the block, using his hips to provide the momentum he needed.  
  
He grunted, but it felt like hitting a pillow.  
  
The short, skinny doctor nodded his head in approval.  “Good, good.  Now, describe how it felt.  Is there any pain?”  
  
“No.”  Eliot examined his hand, looking for any broken skin or fractures in his bones.  “It didn’t hurt at all.”  
  
Both doctors started making notes on their charts while a nurse moved to his side and inspected his hand, bending the fingers and prodding at the point of impact on his palm.  Eliot kept his focus on the doctors because it was obvious they were pleased.  
  
“You thought I might actually hurt myself,” he accused.  
  
The tall doctor looked up and fixed a superior look on Eliot.  “These are experimental treatments, so there are always some risks involved, yes.  But, we’ve tested this drug on other individuals and knew the results.  This just confirms that you haven’t had an unusual reaction.  As of yet, anyway."  
  
Eliot growled and moved forward, but the orderly jerked him back.  He stopped short.  He tried again, but at the pull on his arm, he immediately stood still.  There was something else in his system.  
  
“What else did you do to me?”  
  
“It’s just a mild dose of an inhibitor to keep you under control.  We would prefer to not have to resort to crude methods of punishment for any bad behavior.”  The short doctor had a smug smile on his face that Eliot really wanted to punch off.  “Nurse, we’re done with Mr. Spencer for the day.  If you will please have him escorted back to his room and have someone check on him every twenty minutes to make sure none of the drugs react oddly with his systems.”  
  
The guards at the door were grabbing onto him before he even had time to register their movement, and he reluctantly let them lead him back to his room.  When the door shut behind him, he started pacing the room, clenching his fists at his side and unclenching them, resisting the urge to beat the crap out of the wall.  
  
He ended up losing that battle, and the nurse was very surprised when she came by twentty minutes later to find Eliot cradling his right hand against his chest, a mess of blood and broken fingers.

***************

Hardison shuddered when the nurse pricked his finger and wiped the small drop of blood that welled up onto a testing strip.  She repeated the same process on his other hand and walked off.  
  
He waited, fiddling with the keyboard she had put in front of him; it had been so long since he had been anywhere near any sort of technology that he could almost feel tremors coursing through his body.  Eliot would make fun of his pseudo-addiction if they were able to talk, but no one had even seen Eliot for a few days.  
  
Or Parker, for that matter, which worried him more.  
  
The lights dimmed around him, and he glanced nervously over his shoulder to make sure there were no sudden surprises headed his way.  The nurse just nodded at the keyboard and flipped a switch.  
  
The wall lit up into six separate screens that were so reminiscent of their old headquarters that he wanted to cry.  
  
He waited for some sort of instructions, but after a few minutes of silence, he pulled the keyboard closer and started exploring.  
  
The icons, the documents, everything was eerily similar, like what he had stored on his laptop when he was taken in.  He moved to click on the shortcut for WoW, but the nurse cleared her throat.  
  
“Am I supposed to be doing something specific?” he asked, a little irritated about the situation.  “Because I sure haven’t heard anything about that.”  
  
“This time is not for you to participate in idle games.”  The shortcut suddenly disappeared, and he caught the movement of her fingers on a separate keyboard.  “Besides, your connection to the Internet will only allow you to have limited access.”  
  
He sat back, breathing hard as he tried to keep from throwing the keyboard at the screens.  “You want me to go back through the files I encrypted.”  
  
She didn’t answer, but that was a pretty good confirmation by his reckoning.  
  
“Fuck this, man.  I ain’t helping you.”  
  
“Your cooperation is vital at this time.  Innocent people have been hurt by your refusal to help us find your missing teammate.”  
  
“And how many people will we hurt when you make us into a twisted version of the Justice League?”  
  
“This is selfish of you.”  Her voice was cool and hard, and Hardison really wished he was a fighter like Eliot.  And capable of hitting a woman.  
  
He shook his head.  “Whatever, man.  You’re not very good at the manipulation stuff.”  
  
The screens flickered, and he was now looking at a feed of Parker in a small room attempting to claw her way up the walls.  She turned to the camera and snarled, her eyes wild and wide.  
  
“How long has she been in there?” he asked quietly, trying to pretend like he wasn’t about to make a charge for the door in an ill-advised rescue attempt.  
  
“Four days.  We were hoping the isolation might make her more willing to cooperate, but she’s only been acting like a wild animal.”  
  
“Let her out of there.”  
  
“If you can give us the information in those encrypted files, then we will be happy to do so.”  
  
He watched the screens as he debated his options.  Those files held valuable information on Nate and the team, including the small amount of information he had kept from when he had set them up to go into hiding.  He didn’t know if it would actually help them, but he also had no clue where Nate was or what the man was doing.  
  
It was a gamble, and he knew the odds were stacked against him.  
  
Swallowing back the bile rising in his throat, he picked up the keyboard and pulled up the files; his fingers trembled as he entered the codes and the documents started coming up.  He was tempted to just start deleting them, but he quashed that flight of fancy down.  Parker needed him to do this, and it was safer to bet that Nate was smart enough to get off the grid.  
  
“There, that’s all of them.”  Hardison tossed the keyboard aside.  He felt at that moment that he might be happy if he never touched another computer again.  “Let her go.”  
  
“I’m afraid we can’t do that right away.”  
  
“But you said…”  
  
“That we would let her out of the room.  And we will.  When we feel it is the right time.”  
  
He lunged for her, then, and he heard the tell-tale buzz before he felt the crackling electricity surge through his body.

***************

Sophie heard the medical wing’s doors open, but she couldn’t turn her head to see her newest visitor.  There had been a constant parade of doctors and nurses at her bedside ever since the surgery, poking and prodding at her.  
  
Her skin itched underneath the bandages covering her face; they had tied her hands to the rails of the bed to keep her from trying to scratch at it.  
  
“I heard you were recovering well.”  
  
She rolled her eyes at the sound of Joseph’s voice, then winced when she felt a stabbing pain in her eye sockets.  
  
“It doesn’t feel like it.”  
  
There was a scrape of a chair being pulling up to the bed and the familiar sound of Joseph sitting down and situating his weight against the hard plastic.  She also caught the sound of faint shuffling in the background, which probably meant there were a few guards on her door.  
  
She had heard that Maggie had tried to fight her way into the medical wing a few days ago; her imaginings of the incident always brought a smile to her face.  Well, they would if she could smile.  
  
“Well, some pain is to be expected.  When the scars heal, you will be the most beautiful woman in the world, bar none.”  
  
“I don’t want that.”  
  
He sighed heavily, and she wanted to huff back to be contrary.  “You’ll look like a woman in her mid-twenties, no wrinkles, perfect features, even a perfect body.  Every woman wants that.”  
  
“You’re assuming a lot.”  She took a deep breath and tightened her fingers around the rails.  “Asshole.”  
  
“Why don’t you explain it to me?”  
  
“I want to see Maggie.”  
  
“The doctors feel it’s best if you don’t have any visitors.”  
  
“Then what are you doing here?”  
  
“I’m a medical professional.  Checking in on you is part of my job.”  
  
“Go away.”  She was aware she was whining, but the pain caused by talking was making her nauseated.  “You’re just wasting your time.”  
  
He sighed, and his plastic chair creaked.  “You said that this isn’t something you want.  Why?  Isn’t being beautiful your job?”  
  
“I think you have me confused with a whore.”  She closed her eyes.  “If you think that all I need to be a good grifter is to be the most beautiful woman in the room, then you don’t know anything at all.”  
  
“It can’t hurt you.”  
  
“Wrong.”  
  
“Then, how?”  
  
“Figure it out yourself.”  She turned her head a little away from him to indicate she was through talking.  “I’m going to take a nap.”  
  
He didn’t say anything else, but he was still there.  She had never noticed before how loudly he breathed; and through his mouth, too, which was annoying.  Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, and she wondered why she was in so much pain.  She had about a hundred different tubes and needles stuck in her.  Surely one was supposed to have at least morphine in it.  
  
“You’re used to being able to fade away if you want to.”  His voice startled her.  “But, that’s not part of your job anymore.  You’ll need to get used to it.”  
  
The chair legs squealed against the floor when he stood up, and she winced at the assault on her ears.  There was a click of a button, then the pain slowly started melting away, leaving behind a vague light-headedness and the urge to sleep.

***************

Hardison didn’t look up when Maggie sat down beside him.  It was a beautiful day, the kind that drew Parker to rooftops with her ziplines and rigs, and he had been allowed out into the courtyard for a few hours.  
  
“Sophie’s still in the medical wing.”  Maggie’s hand brushed against his shoulder.  
  
He nodded his head.  “They won’t let Eliot outside.  Afraid he might try to fight his way out of here.”  
  
“What about Parker?  Do you know where she is?”  
  
“They still have her locked up.”  He formed his left hand into a fist then relaxed his fingers.  “It’s been two weeks.”  
  
A breeze drifted through the small courtyard, and he could smell the scent of Maggie’s shampoo.  Jasmine.  The bastards were doing this on purpose.  
  
“They have to let her out soon,” she murmured.  
  
“I gave them files on Nate.”  He shook his head and pressed his thumb into the palm of his hand.  
  
“Will they be able to get any useful information from the files?”  
  
“No idea.  I thought if I did it, they would let Parker out of that room.  She looked…I’ve never seen her like that.  Not even when we all started working together.”  
  
“How bad is it?”  
  
“I have no idea.  They might have broken her.”  He turned to look at her.  “I heard about your fight with the guards over Sophie.  What’s going on?”  
  
A look between bemusement and worry crossed her face, and she gave him a hesitant smile.  “Nothing like what everyone seems to think.  We’re friends.  But, I’m worried about her.”  
  
“Why?  What did they do to her?”  
  
“You don’t know?”  
  
From the way Maggie stiffened and withdrew from his side, her face closing off, he picked up that he was missing out on some very valuable information that he should have had.  Which meant that he probably missed out while he was agonizing over Parker and what he had done.  
  
“No.  People don’t just go around telling me things.”  
  
“It was extensive plastic surgery.”  
  
“Where on her body?  Her face?”  
  
Maggie started to answer, but the doors behind them opened and a few more guards came out.  When they moved to the side, Sophie stepped outside, blinking against the sunlight.  Hardison’s breath caught in his throat as he watched her walk into the courtyard, her movements stiff like she was in pain or incredibly uncomfortable.  
  
“Sweet fucking Jesus,” he whispered, tracking her with his eyes.  
  
Maggie had her eyes trained on Sophie as well, her mouth hanging a little open.  Hardison couldn’t blame her.  Knowing and seeing were two very different things.  
  
“It’s like seeing her twenty years ago.  And not,” Maggie finally said.  
  
“Yeah.”  He cleared his throat and ducked his head as Sophie turned to look back at him.  “Really fucking weird.”  
  
“Do you think she’s okay?”  
  
He glanced over at Maggie and almost grinned at the way she was fidgeting on the concrete step, looking like she wanted to run over there and hug Sophie and also like she might just want to stay right there with him.  
  
“I think she’s pissed.”  
  
Maggie nodded her head.  “She looks like it.  I just…God, I can’t get over how fucked up this is.  I can’t imagine how she’s feeling.”  
  
“Go over there and find out.”  
  
She shot him a hesitant look.  “Why don’t you?”  
  
“Rules of playing this game.  No direct contact.  She’d probably beat me off with the first guard she could grab.”  
  
“Okay.”  Maggie stood up and took a deep breath.  She started to walk off and turned back around to face him.  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Hardison.  You tried to do the right thing.”  
  
“I sold Nate out for a worthless deal.”  He gave her a thin smile.  “Might have sounded like the right thing, but it was a shitty idea.”  
  
“You’re a good man, Hardison.  Which is why all of this is so much harder on you.”  
  
She smiled at him and walked away; he leaned back on his elbows and watched as Maggie sidled up to Sophie.  He was tempted to relax and ignore the reunion, but the way Sophie drew away from Maggie, shaking, kept his attention.  
  
Sophie was losing it, but Maggie looked so unperturbed, even glancing over her shoulder back at him with a nod of her head.  He had to fight the urge to bolt upright.  It was a signal, the best Sophie could give him.  They were losing ground.  Fast.

****************

Eliot looked up to see Maggie headed straight for him.  She sank down next to him on the bench but didn’t say anything; he watched her for a moment, wondering at the slightly wild expression in her eyes, but when she kept staring right in front of her, he turned his attention elsewhere.  
  
“How are you?”  
  
Her voice was strained and quiet, but he heard her.  
  
He shrugged.  “Fine, I guess.  What’s going on?”  
  
“I’ve missed seeing you.”  
  
“Yeah, same here.  Maggie, what’s going on?”  
  
She whipped her head around and stared at him.  “Nothing.”  
  
He felt the press of her fingers in his pocket; he smiled at her, and she grinned back, a little too widely.  She left a moment later, and he relaxed back against the wall, waiting for a few minutes before standing and wandering to an empty hallway.  
  
He pulled the scrap of paper from his pocket and read it.  
  
 _Sophie’s in the closet.  She needs you._  
  
It was Parker’s handwriting, which he didn’t quite understand.  But he started off in the direction of the closet at a quick pace.  
  
He let himself into the small room without knocking, and he ducked just in time to avoid Sophie’s fist flying at his face.  He pushed in the lock and leaned against the door.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  She started pacing the small length of floor, her fingers plucking at the sleeves of her shirt.  “I thought you were someone else.  What are you doing here?”  
  
“Was told you were freaking out.”  
  
She didn’t answer, just kept up her pacing; he opted for not pushing at the moment and studied her face.  He hadn’t had an opportunity before then to examine the after-effects of her surgery, and it felt odd to think of her as Sophie when she looked so different.  He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she looked so much younger or that her features were sharper.  
  
She almost looked like a completely different person.  
  
“What’s going on, Soph?”  
  
“Look at me.”  She whirled to face him, her face creased with disgust.  “Look at what they did to me.”  
  
“That’s not all that’s bothering you.”  He noted the way she shifted her feet, the way her eyes darted around the room.  
  
She shook her head.  “No, it’s…everything.  Do you think he’s ever going to come for us?”  
  
He didn’t even have to ask what she meant, and he started to open his mouth, confirm what she wanted to hear, but he stopped.  He couldn’t quite bring himself to give her false reassurances.  
  
“I don’t know.  Maybe.  Hopefully.”  
  
She turned away for a moment, then back, her mouth opening and closing like she was trying to speak and couldn’t get the words out.  He reached out to her, but she ignored him, inhaling deeply and closing her eyes.  
  
She finally whispered, “Tara’s dead.”  
  
“What?  When?  Who told you?”  
  
“Joseph told me a few hours ago.  I…they were trying to bring her in, use her as leverage against me.  And, well, she killed herself rather than let them take her.”  
  
Her voice caught a few times, as stilted and unnatural as when she tried to deliver lines onstage.  He could see it happening, Tara standing in front of all those men, her golden hair glinting in the sunlight, probably wind whipping that hair across her face.  Probably used a gun.  Make sure it was done properly.  
  
He looked back at Sophie and saw the way she was chewing on her bottom lip, the shifts of muscle in her cheeks.  It was the tell-tale crack of her officially losing her shit, and as the first shuddering sob slipped past her lips, he wrapped her up in his arms, pulling her weight against him and pressing his lips to her hair.  
  
He could feel the tremors rocking her body; she twisted her hands in the front of his shirt.  He rubbed her back and settled in to wait for this to ride out.  
  
So he was a little surprised when she lifted her head and pulled his mouth down to hers.  
  
“Soph, wait, no.”  He broke away from her grasp, but her fingers were already playing at the edge of his waistband.  
  
“Please, Eliot.”  She looked a little deranged, and she pressed herself up against him.  “I need this.”  
  
“We can’t.”  
  
“Come on, it’s just a little fuck in the closet.  No one has to know.”  
  
He jerked her arms away from his body as she moved back in and held her still.  “No.”  
  
He tightened his fingers against her skin, and she whimpered, “Don’t.”  
  
The crazed look had fallen from her face, and now he could only see the desperation and fear.  The pieces clicked into place, then, and he understood what she was after.  He slipped his hands away and took a deep breath.  
  
“Just this once,” he murmured, pushing her hair away from her face and drawing her closer.  
  
She closed the gap and pressed her lips to his, nipping his bottom lip with her teeth and slipping her tongue into his mouth.  She was pushing harder and faster than he had anticipated, and he groaned when she stroked him through his sweatpants.  He kept his hands in a light grip on her waist, waiting for her to tell him what to do even though he wanted to hold her tight against him.  
  
Trailing her hands along the hem of his shirt, she forced it up his chest, breaking away from his mouth to slip the shirt over his head.  She pulled off her own shirt and pants, moving back in to attack his mouth with her lips; she moaned when he slid his tongue over hers.  
  
She took a couple of steps back and grabbed his hand; she pulled him away from the door and pushed him to the floor.  A few cans of white powder tumbled off the shelves, but he ignored them as she ripped his pants off, flinging them to the side.  He flicked her bra open and slipped it from her shoulders, rolling one nipple through his fingers.  Her breath caught in the back of her throat.  She settled on his stomach and reached behind her to grasp his cock, stroking him slowly.  He could feel her wetness through her underwear.  
  
He gritted his teeth to keep from being too loud and tugged at her underwear until she lifted enough off his body to finish slipping it off her hips.  
  
When she resettled on his abdomen, her hand still working in a steady motion, he murmured, “Protection?”  
  
She shook her head and leaned over to whisper her lips against his.  “It’s taken care of.”  
  
Something flashed in her eyes when he looked up at her, but then she lifted and sank down onto him in a smooth motion.  He bit back a moan and settled his hands on her hips, splaying his fingers across her smooth skin.  She started moving against him, grinding her hips and gripping his shoulder in her left hand, her nails digging into him.  
  
It was hard and fast and dirty, and he let her guide the pace, let her pull one of his hands up to her breast and arch her back into him.  She rubbed her fingers against her clit and used her free hand to push against his chest as her movements became more frantic.  
  
When he felt her muscles clench around him and her mouth opened in a soundless cry, he grabbed her hips and thrust up into her twice before his release hit him.  
  
He felt boneless after, and he kissed her; she tried to crawl off of him, but he looped an arm around her waist and held her against his chest, her head resting underneath his chin.  She traced a delicate pattern on his chest with her fingers, and he hummed in approval.  It was quiet but different from the silence they normally lived in.  
  
“I killed someone,” he finally said.  
  
She shifted against him, lifting her head to look at him.  “What happened?”  
  
He sighed and drifted his hand down her back.  “They put me in a room with a man.  We were fighting, and I took him down.  I…I wanted to stop, but I just kept hitting him.”  
  
He met her gaze, a little apprehensive, and was surprised to see her smiling softly; she brushed her lips against his and traced her fingers along his brow, smoothing out the wrinkles of his forehead.  
  
“Things will be better eventually, Eliot,” she murmured as she slid off of him, already pulling her clothes back on.  
  
He sat up and watched her get dressed, catching the clothes she tossed in his direction.  She slipped to the door as he slipped his pants back on; she turned and gave him a sad smile before leaving. 

***************

Joseph looked around the circle of chairs and tapped his pencil against his notepad.  He was met with sullen looks.  
  
“So, let’s see if we can get something done today,” he said, trying to smile.  “I thought maybe a group session would benefit all of you since you’ve been so isolated.”  
  
Sophie looked at him and grinned; he shifted uncomfortably at that and focused on a black mark on the floor.  Eliot growled something under his breath.  
  
“Well, I think my first question would be about your pasts.  Most of you have broken laws, hurt other people, and even killed.”  
  
“Your point?” Hardison asked with a shrug of his shoulders.  
  
“I was wondering if you have any regrets.”  
  
Parker answered first.  “No.  I’m a thief.  I haven’t hurt anyone.”  
  
“I’m with Parker,” Maggie piped up.  “Well, except for the being a thief thing.”  
  
“I’ll third that.”  Hardison leaned back in his chair and grinned.  “We help people, man.”  
  
Eliot licked his lips and smirked.  “I don’t have any regrets, either.”  
  
Sophie looked from Eliot to Joseph, a dangerous smile playing with her lips.  “Of course I don’t have any regrets.”  
  
They all stood up at the same time, and Joseph fumbled with his pencil.  He dropped it to the ground as they started filing out of the room.  He started to reach for it, but found himself face-to-face with Sophie.  
  
She handed the pencil to him and murmured, “I think the better question is: do you have any regrets?”  
  
He clenched his pencil in his hand as she left; he heard a small crack and looked down to see that he had snapped in two. 

***************

“Sir, there’s someone here to see you.”  
  
Sterling looked up at the man who had walked into his office.  He thought his name was Patrick, but he wasn’t sure.  He hadn’t exactly bothered finding out, anyway.  
  
“Who is it?”  
  
“He just keeps saying he needs to see you.  I don’t know his name.”  
  
Sterling sighed and closed the file he had been examining.  “Send him in, then.”  
  
Patrick nodded his head and left; a moment later, the door opened again, and Sterling grinned when he looked up.  
  
“I was wondering when you would show up, Nate.”  
  
“Sterling.  I’m here for a favor.”


	5. out here in the dark

 

** Chapter Five:  out here in the dark **   
_"What was it brought you out here in the dark?_   
_Was it your only way of "making your mark"?_   
_Did you get rid of all the voices in your head?_   
_Do you now miss them and the things that they said?_ **"**   
**\- “Murder” by David Gilmour**

**  
**

“It’s a horrible plan.”  
  
“We don’t have any more time.  They know you’re here.”  
  
Nate frowned and scratched at his beard.  “How do you know that?”  
  
“I received a phone call from Mynas this morning.  I managed to throw him off a little, but they know you’re back in the States.”  Sterling jabbed his finger at the building plans they had pinned up on the wall.  “If we don’t try now, then I might as well hand you over.”  
  
“Fine, fine.”  Nate paced a little and stopped.  “So, tomorrow?”  
  
“Yes.  I have all the materials we need.”  
  
“Okay, then.”  
  
Sterling pulled down the plans and rolled them up, storing them in one of his desk drawers.  He rubbed his forehead and glanced back at Nate.  
  
“If you had to choose, who is a priority?”  
  
Nate looked up.  “What do you mean?”  
  
“If you have to choose between your team members, who is a priority?”  
  
“I don’t want to play this game, Sterling.”  Nate shook his head.  “We’re getting all of them.”  
  
Sterling rolled his eyes.  “This isn’t a game.  We only have a small window of time to operate in, and we don’t know where they’re being kept in the facility.  So, I’ll ask you again:  if it comes down to choosing, who is a priority?”  
  
Nate turned and gazed out the window; the black had started fading out of his hair, which made him look much worse for wear than normal.  Sterling waited, fishing out his gun and checking it to make sure it was armed and functional.  He placed it on his desk and pulled out another one he had obtained for Nate.  
  
“Sophie.  If we only have one chance, I want to make sure she at least gets out.”  
  
Sterling sighed and laid the gun down.  “I could have told you would pick her.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to get them all out.  Even though we only have the floor plans for the top floor, it doesn’t look to be very large.”  
  
“Hope not.”  Nate loosened the collar of his shirt and settled into Sterling’s desk chair, spinning from side to side in it.  “So, why exactly are you helping me?  You’ve spent the past few years trying to put me and my team in jail.”  
  
“I owe you a favor.”  
  
“Come on, Sterling, I know you better than that.  Now that you have Olivia back, you have a lot more to lose.  So, what is it?  What are you getting out of this?”  
  
“Do I always have to be working an angle?”  When Nate gave him a look, Sterling grinned a little.  “Well, you have me there.  They took Maggie away, and she’s never done anything to deserve that.”  
  
“Is that all?’  The way Nate was staring at him was a little infuriating, but Sterling pushed the agitation aside.  
  
“Most of it.  You could call it the final push for me to be firmly in your team’s camp.”  He traced his fingers along the edge of his desk.  “You might be criminals, but you help people after a fashion.  And, for all the shit you do, your place is in jail.  Not as an experiment for the government.  That’s something you should be able to choose.”  
  
“Those are a lot of words when you could have just said, ‘and my heart grew three sizes that day’.”  Nate smirked and strode over to the small wet bar.  “You know?  It shouldn’t be that hard to admit.”  
  
“Do you have to be an asshole about everything?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Nate tossed back his drink and placed the glass carefully back onto the bar.  Sterling watched him, the way Nate’s hand lingered against the bottle, the way he pushed himself off the bar and strode across the room, trying just a little too hard.  
  
“Let’s go,” Sterling said quietly.  “We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

****************

Sophie pressed her hands against the wall and wished again that Maggie was there to keep her company.  After their last session with Joseph, they had all been forced to separate.  It made the days infinitely longer and much more boring.  
  
She could hear the sound of yelling outside in the corridor, but she didn’t go to investigate.  Parker had probably gotten out of her room again.  
  
There was the distinctive report of a gun shot, and she turned on her heel to face the door, hoping and not hoping that it meant what she thought.  She held her breath.  
  
The door burst open, and one of her guards backed inside, his gun pointed in the direction of the hallway.  She moved away from him just as he grunted and fell to the ground, holding his hand to his chest.  Two more shots sounded, and he slumped over.  
  
She took a tentative step forward, edging around the dead guard, and two more people stepped through the door.  
  
“Sophie?”  The question was tentative, the voice rougher than she remembered.  
  
She broke out into a smile and ran towards him.  “Nate!”  
  
He dropped the hand holding his gun and caught her against him with his other arm, pressing her so close as she buried her face in his neck, breathing him in, clutching at him with desperate fingers.  
  
“I thought you weren’t coming for us,” she whispered, pulling back just enough to kiss him.  
  
He grinned.  “I was always coming for you.  Always.”  
  
Sterling stepped up beside them and cleared his throat.  “As touching as this reunion is, we need to move on.  We have four more people to get, and they all know we’re here by now.”  
  
Nate nodded his head and stepped away from her.  “He’s right.  The hallway’s clear for right now, so we should go.”  He pulled a gun from the holster on his hip and handed it to her.  “Here.  Now, do you know where everyone else is?”  
  
Running her fingers over the smooth metal, she smiled and said, “Yes.  How long do we have?”  
  
“About fifteen more minutes before the bomb goes off, and I would like to be out of here before that happens,” Sterling called back from the doorway.  “Which way?”  
  
“Take a left, then a left at the end of the hallway.  Go all the way down.  That’s where they have Parker.”  She clicked off the safety as Nate moved beside Sterling.  “I just hope you know a way out of the building.”  
  
“We’ve got that covered.”  Nate reached back and squeezed her hand.  “Okay, let’s go.”

***************

The second they tumbled into the safe house Sterling had set up, Hardison turned to face the group.  
  
“We have to cut out our GPS trackers,” he announced even as Parker slipped past him and jumped onto the kitchen table.  
  
Maggie frowned.  “Trackers?  When did those get put in?”  
  
“I don’t know if you have one.  I would have to ping it.  But, the rest of us do.  They put them in when they burned off our fingerprints.  Had to have some way of tracing us.”  
  
Eliot turned to Sterling.  “First aid kit?”  
  
“Fully stocked cabinet to your left,” Sterling replied as he walked out of the room.  
  
Eliot pulled supplies out of the cabinet, tossing a pair of latex gloves to Hardison while he pulled on his own pair.  Eliot unwrapped a few surgical implements and laid them out on a piece of clean white paper.  He arranged a roll of gauze, a suture needle, and thread as well and motioned to Hardison.  
  
“You’ll have to cut the thing out.  I don’t know where it is, and I have a feeling you know all the details.”  He twirled the scalpel and offered it to Hardison.  
  
Hardison shook his head and backed away.  “Nuh-uh, man.  I don’t do that shit.”  
  
“I’ll talk you through it, make sure you don’t cut anything important.”  
  
Sophie huffed and sat down in the nearest chair, holding her arm out over the paper Eliot had spread on the table.  “You can do me first.  It’ll matter less if you mess up my arm.”  
  
Hardison swallowed hard and pulled on his gloves, taking the scalpel from Eliot’s hand.  He traced a path down her arm with two fingers; he settled on a spot about halfway down the underside of her forearm and nodded to Eliot.  Eliot spread some disinfectant over the area and grasped Sophie’s arm on either side to hold her still.  
  
Nate came up behind her, and she shot out her hand to grab onto his, squeezing it as Hardison pressed the scalpel against her skin.  She hissed when Hardison cut a steady line on her arm and stuck a finger inside to probe around.  
  
“Can you feel it?  Or do you need to cut further?” Eliot asked.  
  
“I don’t it’s that deep.  It should be…”  Hardison screwed up his face and pushed his finger in a little farther.  Sophie whimpered, and he smiled.  “There it is.”  
  
Eliot nodded to the forceps on the table.  “Use those.  Wait until you get a good grip on the thing, then pull it out slowly.”  
  
Hardison let out a long breath and kept his finger in place as he readied the forceps.  He took a moment to try to mentally map out where the tracker was and then slipped his finger out of her arm.  Sophie was bleeding pretty heavily, but she kept her grip on Nate’s hand.  Hardison inserted the forceps and clamped them around the tracker.  
  
He waited to be sure he had hold of the tracker; he pulled the forceps back out in a slow, smooth motion, sighing in relief when he looked down and saw the small tracker.  Eliot moved into motion and started to stitch up the incision even as Sophie swayed a little on the chair.  
  
Nate placed a hand on her shoulder to steady and her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.  “You’re doing great, Soph.  Almost done.”  
  
Eliot finished the stitches and wrapped the gauze around her arm, taping it down.  He and Hardison stripped off their gloves, and Nate cleared off the table, pulling out more supplies and throwing the used instruments and paper away.  
  
Nate helped Sophie out of the chair, and Parker took her place.  He stepped back to watch Hardison and Eliot work methodically; Parker didn’t even wince, just watched them with blank eyes.  Sophie staggered a little against him, and he wrapped his arms around her waist on instinct.  
  
He couldn’t help noticing the differences between before and now.  Hardison used to threaten to faint at any sign of blood, and he was now performing a minor surgery without even blinking.  Sophie’s offhand comment about her arm was bothering him as well.  
  
But, it was the absence of conversation, the way they all looked like they were on the verge of saying something to each other, that really bothered him.  It was like they had forgotten how to be around each other, how to interact with anyone else.  Sophie wouldn’t even meet his eyes, and she stiffened a little when he rubbed her back before relaxing.  
  
He had thought he would be getting his team back.  And, he had.  But, these weren’t the people he used to know, and he had a feeling they were gone forever now.

****************

Parker trailed her fingers along the table and ignored the way the world swam in front of her; the rough texture of her skin caught against the grain of the wood.  She winced at the feeling and pulled her hand away, rubbing at the palm.  
  
The chair on the other side scraped against the floor, and she heard someone plunk into it; she looked up, saw that it was Sterling’s kid, and went back to pressing her hands together.  She could feel the girl staring at her, but she was used to that.  
  
“What’s wrong with your hands?”  
  
Parker frowned and narrowed her eyes as she stared at the girl through a curtain of tangled hair.  “What’s wrong with your face?”  
  
The girl wrinkled her nose.  “That’s not very nice.”  
  
“Neither was your question.”  
  
“I was just wondering.  They looked like they were hurting you.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Parker snapped, dropping her hands into her lap.  “You should mind your own business.”  
  
Parker’s irritation didn’t faze the girl.  “My name’s Olivia.  You’re Parker, right?”  
  
“Yeah.  Now go away.”  
  
“I don’t have to.  This is my house.”  
  
“So what?  That doesn’t mean I have to talk to you.”  
  
“Parker.”  It was a quiet reprimand from Sophie who had just wandered into the room, but it caught her attention.  
  
Parker huffed and rolled her eyes.  She watched as Olivia stood; Olivia flashed her a small smile and followed after Sophie.  When they were gone, she went back to rubbing at her hand.

***************

“We need to head out.  When they recover from the explosion and try to trace us, they’ll see where our trackers reported this as our last known location.”  
  
Nate looked up at Hardison and nodded his head.  “Okay.  Help me round everyone up.  We have two vans in the back.”  
  
“I’ll get on that.”  Hardison started to walk off and turned back.  “Hey, man, are you sure that Sterling is legit?  ‘Cause, well, you know.”  
  
“He’s on our side.”  Nate patted Hardison on the back.  “Now, come on, get a move on.”  
  
Hardison smiled weakly and wandered away.  Parker had disappeared about an hour ago, and he was a little worried that she might have just taken off on her own.  He caught Eliot’s eye as he walked through the small living room.  
  
“We leaving?” Eliot called, drawing Sophie’s attention.  
  
“Yeah.  Nate said to pack it up and head out back.”  
  
The two went into motion instantaneously, and Hardison kept walking.  He had just left the kitchen where Parker had been earlier.  He knew Sterling was with his kid, Olivia, in one of the bedrooms.  He paused in the hallway and rocked back on his heels, thinking about any of the places she would go.  
  
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he wound his way back through the living room to find the back door and slipped outside.  He shivered immediately because it was way too cold for a short-sleeved shirt; he couldn’t remember the last time he had been outside in this kind of weather, when the leaves were changing and falling to the ground, the breeze was strong and freezing, and the sun was high and bright in the afternoon sky.  
  
He walked a little ways from the house and leaned his head back, grinning when he spotted Parker perched on the roof.  
  
‘Hey, mama, it’s time to go!”  He waved a little to make sure he caught her attention.  “Come on!  Get down from there.”  
  
She tilted her head to the side and scooted closer to the edge.  “Catch me.”  
  
That was all the warning she got before she flung herself into the air, her arms spread wide like she was going to take off in flight.  He braced his legs in time to slow her fall, but she still took him to the ground; her hair tickled his nose as she laughed and tossed a handful of leaves into his face.  
  
“It’s fall!”  She beamed and scrambled up to skip around.  
  
He followed after her, trying uselessly to catch hold of her arm.  “Slow down, girl, you got leaves all up in your hair.”  
  
She whirled and spun into the circle of his arms.  He just shook his head and started picking out the dry leaves, cursing a little when some crumbled into tiny pieces that got caught up in her golden strands.  
  
“Playing in leaves like kids,” he muttered as she looked up at him.  She was closer than he expected, and he swallowed, taking a step back.  “But, you know, it’s cool.  You were cooped up for a long time.”  
  
“Is it time to go?”  
  
“Um, yeah.  The others are getting some stuff together.  Vans are waiting around the corner.”  
  
He wasn’t prepared for her to grab his hand and drag him in that direction, so he stumbled a bit, almost falling into her.  She just tightened her grip and kept going.  When they rounded the corner, she stopped short, and he did run into her, his chest lightly bumping against her bony shoulders.  
  
The vans were nothing special, black, nondescript, large enough for all of them to fit comfortably in either one.  But, her eyes sparkled anyway as she circled them and ran her fingers over the sides.  
  
She turned back to him and asked, “So, what should we name them?”  
  
He grinned, because that meant things were kind of okay for right now.  He could ignore the strange roughness of her skin pressed against his, and he could pretend not to notice the way she hovered just a bit too close.  They would get through this, just like everything else.

 


	6. your heart is aching

**Chapter Six:  your heart is aching**   
_"You're gravity...searching for the ground  
You're silence...searching for a sound  
Your heart is aching...your heart is my home  
It's fascinating...I know I'll never be alone."_   
_**\- "Mercy" by U2** _

They managed to make it to their second location without incident.  There was an underground garage to accommodate their two vans, and as everyone piled out, Nate looked around in approval.  This was the first time he had actually seen the place, and it appeared that his specifications had been followed to the letter.

“What is this place?” Maggie asked, crossing her arms over her chest at the chill of the garage.

Nate started for the door that would lead to the rest of the place and called over his shoulder, “It’s our new home.  It’s part of what took me so long to break you out.  I had to make sure we had a safe place to go.”

Sophie hurried after him, slipping her hand into his.  The others fell into small groups behind them:  Sterling and Olivia at the front, Hardison and Parker after, and Eliot and Maggie had fallen into the rear.  The lights flickered on as they walked.  The others winced at the harsh fluorescence, but he passed that off as a natural aversion from living with it for so long.

“It’s not very big,” he told Sophie softly, “but I couldn’t find anyplace too obtrusive.”

“I’m sure it’s perfect.”  She smiled a little too brightly at him, and he had to keep himself from flinching away from her.

She noticed, though, and her mouth tightened as they kept walking.  They came to a door, and Nate pulled out a key, unlocking it and pushing it open.  The lights came on automatically; he grinned as he stepped through the door.  It was similar to his old apartment with one large room for the kitchen, a small dining table, and a work area with a few more couches than he used to have.

He heard a murmur of approval from Hardison, who made a beeline for the monitors, running his hands over the screens.  Parker scuffed her feet on the floor and shuffled to a couch, flopping onto it.  Everyone was moving to what used to their usual areas, except for Sterling and Olivia.  Even Maggie was wandering around, mostly following after Sophie.

Nate turned to Sterling.  “You two can go explore, too, if you want.  It’s kind of like my old place, just without the staircase.”

Sterling nudged Olivia’s shoulder and walked off, muttering about finding a bathroom.  Nate noted the way Parker’s expression changed to glare at Sterling.

Sophie came back over, ignoring him when he reached out his hand for her.  She smiled at Olivia.

“Eliot’s going to make something for all of us to eat, so Maggie and I were going to claim some bedrooms.  Do you want to tag along?”

Olivia grinned back at Sophie, her face lighting up.  “Sure.”

As they walked away, he heard Olivia start talking about chess, and he shook his head.  It had been two years since he had seen Olivia, but she was surprisingly the same, just a little older and certainly more outspoken.

He moved to the kitchen and started opening cabinets.

Eliot looked up from where he was chopping up some vegetables.  “Looking for the booze?”

“That obvious?”  Nate groaned and slammed the last cabinet shut.  “There isn’t any.”

“You missed one.”  Eliot jerked his head to the cabinets he was standing in front of.  “Probably should be some here.  Didn’t you pay someone to stock this place?”

“Yeah.”  Eliot moved out of his way, and Nate pulled the cabinets open, grinning when he found a large stash of alcohol.  “Looks like it is here.”

“Don’t overdo it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I can handle myself.”

Eliot ducked his head and went back to chopping the vegetables.  “Sorry.”

Nate frowned as he filled a small glass halfway with whiskey, unsettled by Eliot’s submissive demeanor.  Nate scanned the room, noting the distance between Parker and Hardison while Hardison fiddled with some electronics and Parker just stared off into space.  He sighed and downed the whiskey in one swallow.

***************

Eliot sighed as he pulled out a bag of saline and started setting it up on a pole, sliding the needle into the crook of his left arm.  He taped it into place and pulled out a book he had swiped from the shelves; it was some instructional manual on how to fold origami.

“That looks boring.”

He raised an eyebrow at Parker and marked his place in the book.  “Picking up a new hobby.  You want to hook yourself up again?”

“I don’t like needles.”  She frowned and curled her legs up into her chair.

“You should probably do another round.  Make sure everything is flushed out of your system.”

“How long will it take for you?”

“I’ll probably do another two, just in case.  I’m not exactly sure what they pumped into me.”  He grabbed another bag and tossed it to her.  “You can do it yourself.”

She turned the bag over in her hands, poking at it; she shook her head.  “You do it.”

He shrugged and prepped the bag, reaching a hand out for her arm.  She hesitated for a moment, her eyes flicking between him and the needle, but she eventually held out her arm.

As he pushed the needle in, he watched her flinch and start to pull away; he just kept a firm, loose grip on her and taped the needle down, settling back into the couch slowly.  He went back to his book, occasionally glancing in her direction to make sure she wasn’t going to freak out on him.

“I don’t like what happened to us.”

“Pretty sure we all feel the same way.”  This time he didn’t put his book down; with Parker, he never could tell if they were having a conversation or if she was just putting a random thought out there.

“I don’t think I’m the same person anymore.”

Her voice was timid and almost too soft to hear.  He looked up and turned the page.  With anyone else, he would turn his full attention to the conversation, but with the fact that this was the most she had said in a very long time and that she was clearly dealing with complicated emotions she had no way of knowing how to handle, he knew to give her enough space to have plausible deniability.

She didn’t look at him when she said, “I think I’m broken.”

Her voice cracked, and she ducked her head, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.  He stared down at his book, stuck in between step one and step five of how to fold a paper butterfly.  He didn’t say anything, just leaned over enough to put the open book in her lap.

She traced the tips of her fingers along the diagrams, her brow furrowing; she looked up at him, and he shrugged and rolled his shoulders to relieve some of the tension gathered there.

“We’re all messed up, Parker.  Ain’t nothing new about that.”

“But, this is different.”

She shook her head and pulled out a piece of paper; he had no clue where she had gotten it from, but he didn’t ask.  He glanced over at his IV bag, noting that it was halfway empty.

“Yeah.  But that don’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”

She didn’t give any indication of hearing him; from what he could see, she was absorbed in staring at the book, that damned blankness back in her eyes.  He gave it up for a lost cause and closed his eyes to get a short nap in while the IV ran its course.  He must have drifted off, because when he looked back over at her, she wasn’t there and both of their bags were empty.

If it had been anyone else, he would have been bothered by not hearing anything.  He just shifted in his seat, evaluating his need to find a bathroom when he caught the edge of white paper in the corner of his eye.  He reached over and picked up a delicately folded butterfly from where it had been placed beside him, a small smile on his face.

***************

  


Sophie watched Nate walk into the bedroom, curling up a little more on the bed.  She had taken a very long shower and changed clothes and settled in to wait on him to show up about thirty minutes ago.

He gave her a small smile as he unfastened his pants and let them fall to the floor; his shirt soon followed, but he didn’t make any move to join her.

She drew an absentminded pattern on the bedspread and said, “How exactly is this going to go?”

“Hmm?”  He had moved to the bathroom door, a towel in his hand.  “What do you mean?”

“Are we going to just be friends for now?”  She wanted to throw a pillow at him for the confused expression on his face.  “Are you going to play the gentleman and let me ‘recover’ before you make a move?”

He looked away, a blush coloring his cheeks.  “Sophie.”

“Or do you just not want to fuck me?”

She kind of hated herself at the moment because she was being cruel and he didn’t deserve it.  Apparently she had lost most of her ability to communicate with people.

Nate dropped the towel on the floor and crossed the room in two strides.  Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her, pushing his tongue roughly into her mouth; she moaned and pulled him closer, trying to slide her hands under his shirt.  He pushed her back onto the bed and followed after, kneeling to one side as he pressed his lips to hers again and again until she was breathless.

“So I guess I’m not all that repulsive,” she muttered, lacing her fingers through his hair, grimacing at the horrible color.  “And what did you do to your hair?”

“Had to dye it while I was on the run.  I did get rid of my beard.”  He brushed his mouth against her jaw and pulled back to trace the features of her face.  “You’re still beautiful, Soph.  That’s never going to change.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Not really.  You’re still the same woman.”

She smiled wistfully up at him and shook her head.  “No, I’m not.”

He kissed her again, this time softer and slower, and she melted into it, willing her body to slow down and enjoy it; his hands trailed up her legs, pressing a little into her hips, his fingers fluttering against her skin.

She whimpered and turned her head to the side as he moved his mouth down her neck.  His hands pushed her shirt up and over her head.  He pressed his teeth into the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and she arched up into him, pulling at his undershirt, trying to get it off of him.  He shrugged it off and trailed his mouth lower to her breasts, taking a nipple in his mouth, tugging on it with his teeth, smoothing his tongue over the tip.  She moaned, her nails scraping against his back, and hooked her left leg around his thigh, rolling her hips up into him.

When he pulled back, she huffed.  “Nate, don’t be a bloody tease.”

“Just trying to prove my point,” he murmured as he tapped a finger lightly against her nose.

He slipped a few fingers into her underwear, dragging it down her legs; he nudged her thighs further apart, settling his shoulder between them, his mouth slipping along her skin, closer and closer.  He curled a hand around her left hip, his thumb dipping down to stroke her lightly, barely any pressure but she moaned and bucked.

Chuckling, he pressed his mouth into her center, and she could feel the vibrations, rippling up through her body and across her skin as his tongue flicked her clit in a maddeningly slow rhythm.  She draped one of her legs over his shoulders and dug her heel into his back in an attempt to force him closer, chasing after release desperately.  He pushed a finger into her and sucked on her clit as he curled that finger forward and dragged it out.

“Nate.”  His name was a sigh on her lips as she tangled one hand in his curls and the other clenched onto either the pillow or the bedspread.  She wasn’t sure which.

He thrust two fingers back into her and started moving a little faster, pacing his strokes and licks to the sounds of her quiet moans and whimpers, the rock of her hips as the sensations overwhelmed her until it all crashed through her body.

She shook as she came, her breathing harsh in the quiet as she recovered, his fingers sliding out of her and pulling her into him.  He kissed her stomach, the top of her breast, her collarbone, her neck, back to her lips.  She could taste herself in his mouth, and it was enough to pull her back to the present, make her want him again.

She could feel his hardness pressing into her hip, and she slipped her hand down, palming him through his boxers; he hissed at the contact, and she pushed her hand inside, wrapping her fingers around him and moving in a smooth up and down motion, her lips brushing against his neck, her tongue sweeping over his skin.  He mumbled something under his breath and started to move away from her.

“What’s going on?”  Her voice was too naked and raw after falling so open around him, and she watched him shudder at the sound.

“It’s just…”  Red crept up his neck and behind his ears.  He wouldn’t look at her as he said, “I don’t think I’m going to last that long if…you keep…you know.”

Her hand stilled, and she smoothed her thumb over the head of his cock, just once, to watch him fight against the groan, the involuntary jerk of his hips.  She retreated and kissed him as she pushed his boxers off his hips.

When he got them off, he pulled her up against him and suddenly pulling back.  “Wait.  We need protection.”

“No, we don’t.”  She distracted him with an open-mouthed kiss that left him panting.

He broke away and shook his head.  “Yes, we do.”

“Nate, I can’t get pregnant.”

She knew she could have chosen a better time to tell him, but she wanted, no, needed to see how he really felt about it.  She had never really wanted children; she thought of them as inconvenient and a nuisance, and it helped that Nate didn’t seem interested after his loss of Sam.  But, there was always a part of her that wanted that life with Nate, wanted the house and the children and the dog and that damned picket fence.

And, if the sadness in his eyes was any indication, he might have felt the same way.

“Can’t?  Why?”

She shrugged her shoulders, making an attempt at a smile.  “Surgery, while they were working on my face.  If you don’t use it, you lose it, I guess.”

His jaw tensed, and she blinked away some unwanted moisture from her eyes, turning her head away; as she stared at the wall, he dropped his lips to her neck and rocked his hips into hers, his cock slipping through her folds.

She felt two fingers on her chin, gently forcing her back to him.  He covered her mouth with his and pushed inside her, his moan getting lost in the rasp of his tongue on hers.  He swayed into her body with slow thrusts, his fingers mapping out designs on her skin, his mouth falling back to her breasts.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, she slanted her hips up into him and murmured, “More, Nate.”

His only answer was a groan and one of his fingers on her clit rubbing in gentle circles.  Her head fell back, her breaths coming in short gasps as he pulled her closer, her name a murmur on the edge of his lips.  She heard the rush in her ears, felt the spark in her belly snarl and flame to life.  His finger flicked her clit in a faster tempo as he thrust harder in her, staring down at her.

This was the part she loved.  His eyes got so boyishly wide, all stormy dark blue, a mix of concentration and wonder and adoration written all over his face, and she knew then that one thing hadn’t changed.  She loved him, still, despite everything and maybe because of everything.

“Sophie.”  It was somewhere between a plea, a prayer, and a poem, and his finger pressing into her clit pushed her over the edge.

Her mouth fell open as her muscles clenched around him, drawing him in even more, and she felt his release as he moaned quietly and sort of collapsed onto her.  The weight was comfortable and reassuring; this was real, she was free, he was here.  His breathing puffed hot air against her neck, and he shifted to her side, slipping out of her.

He reached for her and pulled her up against his body; his lips brushed against her forehead, and she shivered at the touch, every nerve ending in her body working past full capacity.

She closed her eyes.  “This is real.”

“Yes.”

Her lips stretched into what felt like her first smile in forever, and she whispered, “Good.”

  


***************

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Sterling followed Maggie’s agitated pacing with his eyes as he sipped at some of the whiskey he had nicked from Nate’s store.

“No, it’s not.  Being worried about dangerous thieves possibly wanting me dead is a perfectly legitimate concern.”  He poured her a glass of the whiskey and pushed it across the table.  “Besides, it makes Olivia uncomfortable.”

Maggie sighed and grabbed up the glass.  “It’s not all of them, really.  Just Parker, and possibly Hardison since he feels obligated to take her side on everything.  Eliot was even nice to you tonight, and Sophie is going out of her way to make Olivia comfortable here.”

“So, I only have to worry about the unstable, crazy blonde one?”  He raised an eyebrow and gulped down the rest of the whiskey, wincing at the burn.  It had been awhile since he had indulged.  “Very comforting.”

She sank onto the chair opposite him and swallowed some of the whiskey, leaning a little closer as she said, “Parker is unstable right now.  She’s suffered a lot, and you can’t expect her to act like everything is all right.”

He could see a few drops of liquid lingering on her bottom lip, and he resisted the urge to reach over and swipe them away with his thumb.  He rubbed at his eyes.

“Everyone else seems to be fine.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention.”  She snorted and threw back the rest of her drink; she placed the glass next to his, doling out a small splash for him and one for her.  “We’re all fucked up by what happened, and that’s not going away any time soon.”

She tapped her fingers against the table, a staccato rhythm that bounced off the wood and devolved into a random angry beat.  Gripping his glass in his right hand, he covered her fingers with his left, slipping his thumb against her palm.  She stilled and looked up at him, her blue eyes wide as she pulled free and fumbled for her glass.

“What did they do to you?  How have you changed?”

His voice was heavy in the quiet, and she was suddenly too close to him, her lips almost brushing against the corner of his mouth.

“Well, first of all, I’m trying to decide if I’m going to fuck you or Eliot tonight.”

He drew in a sharp breath, staring at her as she stood and walked closer.  She placed her hands on the arms of his chair and leaned into him, her mouth brushing against the shell of his ear.

“Or, maybe him first, then you.  Would you prefer that?”

He twitched and watched her smirk down at him.

Clearing his throat, he said, “What exactly are you trying to do here?”

“What do you think?”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Sophie.”

As she laughed, she moved into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.  He smiled, placing a hesitant hand on her back.  She dipped her head down and pressed her lips to his; he was too dumbfounded to kiss back at first, but her teeth nipped at his bottom lip, and he responded with a groan, reaching up to cup her face with his free hand.

She pulled back and rested her forehead against his, murmuring, “I do know that I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Okay,” he replied, a little breathless, pulling her back in for another kiss.

  


***************

  


He found her lying on the hood of the van and staring up at the ceiling of the garage.  Huddling a little more on himself, he shuffled up to the vehicle and leaned on the side.

“What you doing out here?”

Parker rolled her head on her neck and blinked at him.  “Couldn’t sleep.”

“You never came to bed.”  Hardison kept the irritation out of his voice, but he stood upright and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.  Didn’t want to bother you.”

Her voice was dreamy and at odds with her furrowed forehead; if he didn’t know better, he would think she had taken something.  He just shrugged and slid down the side of the van to the hard ground, crossing his legs and leaning his head back against the vehicle.

“I want to jump off a building, but Nate says we have to stay here.”  He heard the give of the hood as she shifted her position.  “I’m thinking about running away.”

“As long as you take me with you,” he answered automatically, half-laughing, before realizing that she might not be joking.  “Wait, are you for real?  Because you know you can’t do that.”

“Why not?  Why should we listen to Nate?”

“He came and got us out.”

“Yeah, after two and a half years.”

He sighed and craned his neck to catch a glimpse of her blonde hair spilling over the side of the van.  “Are you mad at him?”

She didn’t answer for a long time, and he had almost dozed off when she murmured, “Yes.  Or, maybe.”  She pause  
d.  “Not really.  No.  I’m just tired.”

He smiled a little at that and said, “You know, you wouldn’t have bothered me.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s two beds in the room I picked out.”

He waited, and she rolled off the hood, her feet landing with a dull thud on the ground.  She walked over to him and crouched down, her hands brushing against his knees as she balanced herself.

“So, you know, you won’t bother me.  If you can’t sleep or something.”

He wanted to catch onto one of her hands, but she pulled them back and just looked at him.  She shook her head.

“I don’t want to sleep by myself.”

He fought back the elation threatening to overtake him and asked, “You want to share a bed?”

Leaning closer, she smiled, looking him straight in the eye, and she darted in, pressing her lips against his in a feather-light kiss.  He grabbed onto her shoulders; she stiffened at the sudden touch, but she didn’t pull back.  He traced a finger along the curve of her cheek and kissed it.

Standing up, she slipped out of his grasp, but she reached her hand down to him, and he took it as he pushed himself off the ground.  She let him keep hold of her hand all the way back to their room, and he smiled.

  


***************

  


Shifting his hand downward, Nate leaned further into Sophie’s side and rested his palm against the heated skin of her thigh.  They were secluded in a dim corner of the room on the far side of a sofa.  It was late; the only other ones still wandering around were Olivia and Eliot.

Sophie hummed under her breath and pulled his hand away from her body, playing with his fingers lazily.  It was only a time like this that she let him touch her in front of the others, half in the dark and only so much before she pulled away.  He moved in closer and pressed a kiss to the side of her head; glancing in Olivia’s direction, he sighed.

“She’s staring at you again.”

Sophie stirred from where she had been examining a scar between his left thumb and forefinger he had gotten a long time ago from a broken bottle.  She shot a look at Olivia and turned her head back to him.

“And?  What should I do about it?”

He tugged gently on one of her curls and said, “Talk to her.  She’s obviously very taken with you.”

“That’s weird.”  She frowned and pushed his hand away from her hair.  “I’m more than twice her age.”

“You look younger than Parker, though.  She has no other frame of reference for you, so of course she’s attracted to you.”

“I don’t know how to talk to her about…this.”  Sophie sighed and sank back into the couch’s cushions.  “More than likely, she’s just curious and confused, and I appear to be the closest person to her age group.  It’s attraction by default, not anything real.”

“You should still talk to her.  At least before Sterling notices and goes into apoplectic shock about it.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “You think Sterling would be that upset to find out his daughter was a lesbian or bisexual?”

“No, but he wouldn’t be able to stand her pining after you.”  He wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed a light kiss to her lips.  “I’m not saying you should talk to her right now.  Just sometime soon.”

She wrinkled her nose and pouted a little, but she didn’t protest again, which meant he had convinced her.  She slid a hand into his curls and scraped her nails in a circular motion against his scalp; he moaned softly at the sensation and dropped his mouth to her neck, sucking at the place where it curved into her shoulder.  He heard the catch of her breath and backed off, soothing the imprints of his teeth with a broad stroke of his tongue.

“I fucked him.”

Nate pulled back and looked down at her, confused.  “Who?  What?”

She traced her fingers over his furrowed forehead and said in a steady voice, “Eliot.  I fucked him.”

“When?”

“While we were at that place.  In a supply closet.”

He winced and closed his eyes as he withdrew further; he sensed her following after, her hand resting on his shoulder.  He half-expected her to launch into a full explanation, but she didn’t, and he was grateful.  A part of him, the one filled with rage and hurt, wanted her to so he could rebuke her, condemn her for this betrayal.

He breathed his way through those instincts, though, and waited for clarity.

Clearing his throat, he asked, “Is this something you think will happen again?”

He felt her fingers under his chin, forcing his head up to look at her.  He gave into the direction reluctantly and met her calm, dark gaze.

“No.  We were both half mad by that point, and it wasn’t really about the sex.”  She withdrew her hand and bowed her head.  “I understand if you don’t want to forgive me.”

He just looked at her for a moment, then covered her knee with his right hand, squeezing it gently.  “I’m not angry.  I get it.”

Her eyes lit up.  “Really?”

“Sure.  I don’t like it, but it’s okay.”  He gave her a small smile and kissed the corner of her mouth.

She turned her head and caught his mouth with hers, pulling him down for a kiss that left him breathless when she let him go.  She swiped her thumb along his cheek and stood up.

“Where are you going?”

She bit her bottom lip and said, “I thought I would go talk to Olivia now, while we could have some privacy.”

“Okay.”  He grinned and waved her away as he reached for the book he had been reading a few hours earlier.  “I’ll be going to bed in a little while.”

“Don’t wait up,” she teased as she walked off.

Nate started to open his book and settle in to read a few more chapters when he caught Eliot moving in from his left side.  Oh.  He had been set up.

  


***************

  


Eliot slid smoothly into the empty spot Sophie left behind, careful to leave some space between him and Nate.  He didn’t want to trigger Nate in any way.

“So, did the two of you orchestrate this?”

Eliot studied Nate’s posture, the clenched fist resting on his right knee and the firm set of his jaw.  However, he was still leaning back into the couch which meant he was a little more under control than Eliot had expected.

“No,” Eliot answered with a rueful smile.  “Not really, anyway.  We decided we should tell you, and tonight felt like a good time.”

“Why?”

Under normal circumstances, Nate’s tendency to ask questions without giving a frame of reference was annoying at best and made Eliot want to punch a wall at the worst of times.  However, Eliot was perfectly aware of what Nate wanted to know; the problem was with how to answer it without alienating him or making the situation between Nate and Sophie worse.

Eliot cleared his throat.  “She needed me.  And, well…I wasn’t exactly in a position to turn her down.  You know what she’s like when she wants something.”

“Yeah.” Nate chuckled, the sound a little desperate and broken as he rubbed his hand over his eyes.  “I do.”

“But it didn’t mean anything.  Not to her, and not to me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t think so.  What do you think?”

Eliot sighed and leaned his elbows on his knees.  “I think Sophie loves you.  What happened to her in there, it broke her in a way that nothing else ever has.”

“What about you?  Did they break you?”  Nate was looking at him now, his eyes intense like he was searching for something.

“They tried.”  He grimaced at the memories and ducked his head.  “They took away my control.”

“How bad was it?”

“I killed someone.”

“Did he deserve it?”

“I don’t know.”

Nate sighed, that cold righteous anger slipping back into his eyes.  “More than likely he did.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Eliot spat out.  He felt irrationally angry with Nate for not understanding why this was important.  “It wasn’t my choice to do it.  And, I wanted to.”

“They were manipulating you.”

“I know that.”

“If you did, you would know that it was a ploy to make you lose control.  Break your mind.”

“I know, Nate.  That doesn’t change what happened.”

“It does, in a way.”  Nate looked sad, then, and he drew back from Eliot.  “I killed several guards while I was breaking all of you out, and I never gave it a second thought.  I felt it was justified.”

Eliot’s heart twisted a little at that confession, but he nodded his head.  “It was.”

“I was justified because they had hurt you, had hurt my family.  Why is what happened with you any different?”

Nate shifted on the couch and picked up his book, disappearing behind it.  Eliot sat there for a while, thinking, and he finally stood up.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

Nate just nodded his head and smiled; Eliot pushed his hair back from his face and walked off, his steps a little lighter.

  


***************

  


Sophie smiled when she walked into the bedroom and saw Nate dozing on top of the covers, a few buttons of his shirt undone and his hair an absolute mess.  She pulled off her shoes and crawled up beside him; she kissed his cheek and brushed her lips against his mouth.

“Wake up,” she murmured as she smoothed her hands through his hair and relaxed against the pillows.

He stirred and grinned up at her, still half-asleep.  “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”  She smiled and leaned down to kiss him.  When he let her pull away, she said, “I thought you might want to know how my talk went.”

“Oh?  Do you want to know about mine?”

“What?”

“Just the talk I had with Eliot.  The one you set me up for.”  She started to shift away from him, but he grabbed at her hands.  “Hey, hey.  I’m not mad.”

She looked down at him with a reproachful gaze.  “Then what’s wrong with you?”

“I just woke up?  I’m still processing this shit?”  He sighed.  “Look, it went well, everything’s fine.  You don’t have anything to worry about.”

She brushed a hand against his cheek.  “Are you sure?”

“Do you want me to change my mind?”

“No.”  She laughed and kissed him again.  “So, do you want to hear about what’s going on in Olivia’s pretty little head?”

“I’m listening.”

He moved his head into her lap, his face turned toward hers so he could watch her while she talked; she played with his hair and sighed as she thought about a good place to start.

“Well, it’s not as bad as I originally thought.  Apparently, she’s had a girlfriend before.  As well as two boyfriends.”

“Did she say which one she liked more?”

She laid a finger against his lips, shaking her head.  “Patience, love.  I’m getting to that.  Anyway, she liked one boyfriend the best, but she said the sexual attraction felt the same.  So, she’s pretty sure she’s bisexual.”  She paused, tracing her fingers along his furrowed forehead.  “And, she does have a crush on me.”

“Did she say why?”  He grinned wolfishly at her, and she smacked his arm.

“Something about looking only a little older than her, my legs, and my accent,” she replied, trying to keep the amused look off her face.  “And stop looking at me like that.”

He sat up and wrapped his arms around her, rolling to the side until he was pinning her to the bed.

‘Everybody wants my girl because she’s the prettiest, hottest, smartest, and most amazing woman in the world,” he lilted as he tickled her sides.

She squirmed and kicked out uselessly at him.  “Stop it!”

He stopped tickling her and pressed his fingers fully into her skin; she sighed at the contact and pulled him closer, kissing him lazily as she twined her arms around his neck.

“I have something for you,” he whispered, pulling back just enough to speak, and his mouth just barely brushed hers with each word.

“I’m sure you do,” she replied breathily as she slid a leg between his thighs.

He groaned and shifted a little.  “As much as I would like to reenact some bad porn dialogue with you, that’s not what I meant.”  He reached over and fumbled through the bedside table’s drawer, pulling out the sapphire ring.  He held it out to her.  “Here.  I thought you should have it back.”

She took it from him with trembling fingers.  “I thought it was lost.  After I took it off…I didn’t know if you would find it.”

“Well, I did.  I was hoping, um, well…that, maybe…”

She held out her left hand and smiled shyly.  “Go ahead.”

He slid it onto her left ring finger and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist.  She tilted her head up to press her mouth against his, her hands framing his face.

“I love you, Soph,” he said quietly.  He kissed the tip of her nose and smiled.  “So much.”

She blushed a little and tugged on his collar as she murmured, “I love you, too.”

She pulled him back down to her, her hands slipping under his shirt.

  


***************

  


Hardison pulled Parker a little closer and pressed a kiss to her blonde hair.

“Are you mad that we aren’t having sex?” she asked as she ran her fingers up and down his arm.

“Of course not.  I’m just glad you’re here, mama.”  He grinned and lightly tapped her nose.  “This?  Just being here with you.  That’s what makes me happy.”

“So, it’s enough for you that we’re safe and together?”

He shrugged.  “I guess so.  What else is there?”

She frowned and pulled out of his embrace, sitting up.  He groaned and propped himself against the headboard; he nudged her arm with a half-curled fist.

“Hey, what’s going on in there?  What’s bothering you?”

“It’s not enough for me.”

He sighed.  “What’s missing?”

“Revenge.”  The word slid out of her mouth in a hiss, and she turned to him with a slightly manic look in her eyes.  “We were treated like things, and we help people.  Who’s going to help us now?”

“Are you saying you want to go after the people who did this to us?”

“Yes.”  She bounced a little on the bed and leaned closer to him as she said, “It’s what we do.”

Her enthusiasm faded a moment later, though, and she sank into the covers, her limbs a tangled mess as she tried to shift away from him.  He reached out and tugged on her arm until she reluctantly curled up against his side, her head nestling under his chin.

“What’s wrong?”

“Does feeling that way make me a bad person?  Does it mean something is wrong with me?”

He could hear the tears in her voice, but he knew she wasn’t crying.  He squeezed her waist gently, just enough to remind her that he was there, not enough to make her bolt.

“No.  Hell, I want revenge, too.”  He smiled bitterly and said, “So, I say we make those bastards pay.”

“Good,” she murmured.  She slipped from his grasp and slung her weight over his abdomen, straddling his stomach.  “So, we’re going to have sex now.”

His eyes widened, and he sputtered, “What?  Girl, what the hell…one second…”

“Shut up,” she instructed as she leaned over and kissed him, pushing her tongue roughly into his mouth and already starting to push his shirt up his chest.

When she pulled away and started working on unbuttoning his pants, he muttered, “Yeah, okay, ten-four.”


	7. blow the walls out

**Chapter Seven:  blow the walls out**   
_"I'm not sorry  
For what I'm feeling,  
Blow the walls out,  
Bring the ceiling to the ground.  
  
I've had the nightmares,  
Seen the counselors,  
I'm not going  
Back up in that house again."_   
**_\- "House" by Ben Folds Five_ **

  
Nate rolled out the blueprints of the facility on the table and pinned two large pieces of paper to the wall behind him.  
  
“Okay, this is what we know for certain.  Here,” he pointed to the blueprints and circled a portion of it with a red pen, “we know the building was incapacitated by the bomb Sterling and I planted.”  
  
“You should have used multiple charges,” Parker remarked, grabbing a pencil and moving to one of the sheets of paper.  
  
“Only had time for one,” Sterling put in.  
  
Parker stuck her tongue out at him and whipped around to face Nate, her ponytail slapping Eliot in the face.  
  
“Hey, watch where you swing that thing.”  
  
“It’s just hair, Sparky,” Parker replied with a roll of her eyes.  
  
Sophie moved between the two of them just as Eliot’s face started turning a distinctive shade of red that suggested he might try punching something.  Hardison did his part by grabbing Parker by the hand and dragging her over to the next sheet of paper; she poked him with her pencil and laughed when he jumped and almost fell over.  
  
“So, what exactly are we trying to accomplish, Nate?” Sophie asked.  
  
“We need all of you to help us come with a rough idea of how the rest of the facility is laid out,” Sterling interjected before Nate could answer her.  
  
Sophie shot him an irritated look and pointedly turned back to Nate.  “Well, you’re off to a good start.  It was only two floors deep.  I can tell you that the medical wing takes up the majority of the bottom floor.”  
  
“What counts as the majority?” Hardison asked as he stood poised with his own pencil.  “Three-fourths?  Two-thirds?  Six-twelfths?”  
  
“Six-twelfths is only half, Hardison,” Eliot snapped.  
  
“See, my point exactly.”  Hardison tapped the paper with the tip of his eraser.  “So, anyone got some guesses?”  
  
Sophie pursed her lips and said, “I would say about five-eighths.”  
  
“Now, see, that’s useful,” Hardison said brightly as he started drawing a line down the paper.  
  
Parker moved to his side and started sketching on the paper, explaining, “There are two operating rooms, and three small recovery bays instead of individual rooms.  That’s important.”  
  
Hardison scratched at his chin and watched her draw out precise lines.  “How you doing that without a ruler?  And, why is any of that important?”  
  
“Who says I don’t have a ruler?” she replied absentmindedly.  
  
Nate stepped forward and touched the paper briefly.  “Would you happen to know if the main oxygen line is underneath those operating rooms, Parker?”  
  
She smiled and went back to her drawing.  Maggie moved around the table, grabbing a pencil on her way, and drew a few lines on the left side of the paper.  
  
“This is where they kept patients they experimented on.  I saw the rooms when I tried to go see Sophie after her surgery.”  She filled in about half the space left over from the medical bay and shuddered at the memory.  “I wonder if they’re still down there.”  
  
“We’ll worry about that later,” Nate murmured as he took a step back.  “Okay, so what’s on the middle floor?”  
  
“A lot of rooms,” Eliot growled as he moved in.  “It’s where we spent most of our time, and there’s a staircase we used to get to the courtyard.”  
  
Parker was already filling in the details, drawing perfect rows of small boxes; Nate ran a hand through his hair, making his curls stand up on end as he paced, glancing back at the blueprints on the table behind him.  
  
“We need to destroy this place,” he mused.  
  
“So, bombs in the operating room, scatter a couple on the middle floor, and one at the top to make sure it all blows up?” Sterling suggested.  “Don’t forget that these people are only being funded by more powerful people who can always start this project over.”  
  
“Oh, I already know what to do there.”  Nate gestured to Hardison, who grinned and started pulling up photos and PDFs of documents.  
  
“The CIA has a lot of money invested in this place and Erik Mynas’s dream to turn all of us into some demented superhero team,” Hardison explained.  “But, it’s all under the table stuff, through, like, fifty shell companies.  Took me forever to trace it all out.”  
  
“Are you suggesting we blackmail the CIA?” Maggie asked, a little incredulous.  
  
“Yes.  That’s exactly what we’re going to do.  Insurance against this happening again to us or anyone else.”  Nate nodded his head and walked a little closer to the monitors.  “Parker, you and Hardison will build the explosives.  Sophie, you’re going to be our way into the facility.  Sterling and Eliot will go to the CIA…”  
  
“Um, no,” Sophie interrupted.  “We will not be sending Sterling to bargain for anything with them.”  
  
“Why not?” Sterling asked, rounding on her.  
  
“Because you’re not very likeable,” Hardison remarked.  “People don’t want to work with you.”  
  
“Besides, Nate is just better at that sort of thing than you,” Sophie added.  “Nothing to be ashamed of, though.”  
  
“Well, if I go instead of Sterling, then that means Eliot can go with the rest of you to make sure nothing goes wrong,” Nate put in.  
  
Sophie shook her head.  “No.  Eliot will go with you.  There will not be a change in that plan.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“I’m your insurance against getting killed on the spot,” Eliot said in a low voice.  
  
“And you do get shot.  A lot,” Parker said from where she was correcting Hardison’s crooked line.  She paused and grinned at all of them.  “Ha, that rhymed.  There should be a poem about it or something.”  
  
Hardison chuckled and said, “It could go something like this:  Nate Ford wore too many hats and spent most of his time drunk.  He and Sophie…”  
  
“And, moving on,” Nate said loudly with a pointed look in Hardison’s direction.  
  
“That didn’t rhyme,” Parker hissed at Hardison.  
  
“What’s the rest of the plan, Nate?” Maggie asked as she collapsed onto one of the couches.  
  
“Well, it looks like Eliot and I will go to the CIA to cut a deal, Sterling will take my place in cornering Mynas, and you are in charge of the getaway car.”  Nate frowned when he finished.  “Some of the details are a little rough, mostly the timing with the bombs, but we have time to work that out.”  
  
“Exactly how long do we have?” Sophie said softly, curling up next to Maggie.  
  
“About ten days at the most,” he replied with a sigh.  “That’s Hardison’s best guess, and we’re going to try to be ready to go sooner than that.  So, I already have C-4 and other supplies for explosives stocked here.”  
  
“Is that something you normally keep lying around?” Maggie asked with a laugh.  
  
“I always have C-4,” Parker said as she swung over the back of the couch and bounced on the cushions.  “Never know when you might need it.”  
  
“Something’s wrong with you,” Eliot muttered, stalking in the direction of the kitchen to start cooking supper.  
  
“On that note, we’re done for the night,” Nate told them.  
  
When no one moved, he rocked on his heels and walked out of the room.  Sterling followed him out, probably to discuss the plan in further detail, and Parker pulled a stack of paper out from under the couch and started folding it into small paper cranes.  
  
Maggie eyed Parker’s new hobby and asked hesitantly, “Are you going to fold all that paper into cranes?”  
  
“Of course.”  Parker’s fingers nimbly creased the paper and folded it back.  “I want a whole flock of them.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Parker narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to Maggie.  “Are you trying to ask for one of them?”  
  
Maggie shook her head.  “No, that’s not…”  
  
“Here,” Parker cut her off and dumped two into her lap.  “You can have them.”  
  
“I’ll only take one, Parker.”  
  
When Maggie tried to hand one of them back, Parker shook her head and pushed it back in Maggie’s direction.  “No!  They’re a pair, and they have to stay together.”  
  
Maggie pulled the crane back into her lap and sighed.  “Okay.”  She turned her head to look at Sophie. “So, is this some form of symbolism or something?”  
  
“I…don’t know.”  Sophie eyed Parker and shrugged a little as she stood up.  “Sometimes it’s best not to look for extra meaning in everything.”  
  
“What does that mean?”  
  
Sophie laughed as she walked off, and Maggie poked at her paper cranes; she did like the colors.  Red and yellow, like fire.

***************

“Have you found them yet?” Joseph asked as he surveyed the screens in front of him.  
  
Erik shook his head and sighed.  “We’ve been canvassing the area around their last known location, but nothing yet.  Do you have any useful input?”  
  
“Wait.”  
  
“What?” Erik rounded on Joseph.  “How is that useful?”  
  
Joseph shrugged.  “There’s this funny thing about people.  They operate in patterns they’ve established throughout their lives, and even when they try to change that pattern, they end up only creating a similar one.  So, if you know the pattern for one person, you can figure out what he will do next.”  
  
“What does that even mean?”  
  
“I’ve been taking a look through Nathan Ford’s past cases that have been on the personal side of things.”  
  
“And?” Erik pressed, his tone sharp with impatience.  
  
“Just stay with me for a little bit here.”  Joseph smiled and slid his hands into his pockets.  “We’re talking about Nathan Ford, a man who has made a living out of getting revenge for people he doesn’t even know.  Now, what, exactly, do you think he is going to do to you for hurting his team?”  
  
“So, you think they’ll come back.”  
  
“Nathan Ford will not be satisfied until this place is completely destroyed, and there is no chance of anything like this happening ever again.”  
  
Erik smirked.  “Or, if he believes there is no chance of this happening again.”  
  
“Now you’re getting it,” Joseph said with a nod of his head as Erik pulled out his phone.

***************

“Hey, pass me that screwdriver,” Hardison murmured as he crouched over the bomb he was working on.  
  
Parker tossed it to him; he made a grab for it, but missed.  It thudded against the table once and bounced off to the floor.  
  
Hardison scrambled after it and said irritably, “Said pass, not throw, girl.”  
  
“Sorry.  I thought you would catch it.”  She shrugged and turned her attention back to the wires she was twisting together.  “Besides, it’s going to be too big.”  
  
“I think I know what I’m doing.”  He picked up the tool and tried to screw a tiny bolt into place.  He stopped and sighed.  “Okay, you’re right.  Too big.  But it’s the only one we’ve got.”  
  
Parker leaned over his shoulder to study the bolt and then dragged a small bag out of the box of supplies she had assembled.  She placed it on the table and opened it for him, revealing several different screwdrivers of varying sizes.  
  
“I stole them.  I didn’t think we would need all of them.”  
  
He opened his mouth to ask why she needed so many screwdrivers, but decided against that question.  He just grinned and grabbed the one he needed.  
  
“So, how are we going to time the explosions?” she asked as she went back to work.  
  
“Wireless signal.  I’ll have a remote detonator for when we’re all out of the building, then…”  
  
“Kaboom!” she finished with a wide smile.  
  
“Exactly,” he agreed, chuckling a little at her enthusiasm.  “Putting them on timers won’t allow as much leeway as we might need in case of a delay.”  
  
She nodded her head and poked at the small bomb.  “After this is over, what are we going to do?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“What are we going to do?” she asked again.  
  
Hardison twisted a frayed wire around his fingers and shrugged.  “I don’t know, mama.  I don’t know if we can keep doing the job.”  
  
“Why not?”  She crawled up onto the table and dug the point of the tiny screwdriver into the table.  
  
“Things aren’t just going to go back to normal,” he murmured.  “We don’t even know what’s going to happen with this.”  
  
“The building is going to explode and Nate is going to make the CIA leave us alone,” Parker said quickly, her eyes narrowing a little.  “Right?  Hardison?”  
  
He shook his head.  “It might not happen like that.”  
  
She drew her eyebrows together and set her mouth in a firm line.  “Of course it will.”  
  
“Look, I’m not saying I want things to go bad.”  He placed a hand on her arm, but she jerked away from him.  “It’s just….  We’re used to winning.  But, these are the people who hunted us down and kept us as prisoners for over two years.  We’ve already lost to them once.”  
  
“Why are you saying this stuff?”  Her voice rose in pitch, and she jumped off the table, pointing an accusing finger at him.  “You never did before.  That’s not what you’re supposed to do.”  
  
“What do you want, Parker?”  His shoulders sagged as he looked at her.  
  
“I want everything to be normal.  Why can’t it be the same?”  
  
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she swiped them away angrily, gulping in a breath of air and staring at him.  He took a wary step forward and held his hands out, palms up.  She hesitated then placed her own hands on top of his and took a deep breath.  
  
“Just because it’s not the same doesn’t mean what we are now is bad,” he murmured.  He curled his fingers up over the back of her hands and pulled her a little closer until he could wrap her up in his arms.  “Okay?”  
  
She nodded her head and pressed closer to him until she could rest her ear against his chest and listen to his heartbeat, whispering, “But, this will work?”  
  
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he replied.  He pressed his lips to the top of her head.  “So, I’m going to make damned sure everything goes to plan.”  
  
She closed her eyes and counted the rhythm of his heart, slow and sure.  She pulled away from him and moved back to the table.  
  
Flashing him a smile over her shoulder, she said, “So, one down.  Five more to go.”

***************

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore.  I’m eighteen!” Olivia shouted.  
  
Sterling sighed.  “I know you’re technically an adult.  But, you’re still my kid, and this is dangerous stuff.”  
  
“Then why should you go?  How come you can go and I can’t?”  
  
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and tried to find a way of explaining without patronizing her.  He was having a little difficulty coming up with the right words.  
  
“Because they need me.”  It wasn’t the best he could do, but it was short notice.  
  
She did roll her eyes at that and said, “I need you, too.  You’re my dad.”  
  
“Exactly.  Which is why you should do as I ask and stay here.”  
  
“What if something happens?  What if you need me, and I’m not there?”  
  
“Nothing is going to happen,” he said quietly, placing his hands on her shoulders and giving her a warm smile.  “I promise.”  
  
She wrenched away from him.  “I’m not a child.  I’m not going to fall for that.  Bad things happen all the time to people who aren’t even looking for trouble.”  
  
He rocked back on his heels and reminded himself that he was thankful for his daughter, that, for the most part, she was a really great kid who literally never caused trouble.  
  
“If I did let you go, would you stay with Maggie in the van the whole time?  And not get out for any reason?”  
  
“Do I get an earbud like everyone else?” she pressed, a smile already starting to form on her face.  
  
“Yes.”  He raised an eyebrow and held up a finger.  “But you have to promise not to chatter nonstop.”  
  
“Deal.”  
  
She held out her hand, and he shook it after a moment’s hesitation before pulling her into a fierce hug. 

***************

Nate looked around the circled group and said, “So, we have everything?”  
  
Parker picked up a large bag and slung it over her shoulder; Hardison went around the circle and dropped an earbud into each person’s outstretched hand.  
  
“Now, these are all I’ve got, so try to be nice to them,” Hardison said, giving Eliot a pointed look.  “No submerging them or taking them out for anything.”  
  
Nate nodded his head.  “Eliot and I will go to the CIA headquarters; the rest of you to the facility.  They’re close enough that we’ll get to the two places around the same time.  The second all of you get the bombs planted and make sure there aren’t any innocent people inside, get out and blow the place.  Eliot and I will meet you at the rendezvous point.”  
  
Sterling situated the earbud in his ear and grimaced.  “I have not missed these.”  
  
Maggie patted him on the back while Hardison grumbled under his breath about ungrateful and difficult people.  
  
Parker leaned over and whispered loudly, “Hey, you know that we can all hear you now, right?”  
  
Eliot growled and swept out the door.  
  
Nate cleared his throat and said, “Right.  Well, let’s move out.”


	8. tell us all that you have seen

** Chapter Eight:  tell us all that you have seen **

_ “We're just ash in a jar. _

_So turn and turn again,  
We are calling in all the ships,  
Every traveler: ‘Please come home,  
And tell us all that you have seen’.”_   
**\- “Turn & Turn Again” by All Thieves**

Sophie straightened her back and leaned over the counter just inside the entrance of the Mynas facility, smiling at the security guard behind it.  
  
“Excuse me, Erik asked me to come in today to inspect the medical facilities,” she said in a soft purr, arching her back, knowing that the man’s eyes were more focused on her cleavage than her words.   
  
She heard Sterling’s soft sigh of irritation in her ear, but she ignored him.  The guard swallowed and turned to the computer; he looked back at her with a sheepish smile.   
  
“I’m sorry, miss, but Mr. Mynas doesn’t have any appointments scheduled for the day.”  His eyes flickered back to her chest, and she adjusted her glasses.   
  
She glanced at his name tag and leaned a little closer to him as she said, “Well, Samuel…can I call you Sam?”  When he nodded his head, she continued, “Erik is, of course, a very busy man, and it probably just slipped his mind that I was coming.  After all, this is very last minute because I’m in town for today only.  So, do you think you could let it slide?”   
  
She watched him carefully, looking for any sign that he recognized her.  He probably wouldn’t; she didn’t remember him, and even the guards who followed her around would hopefully have a hard time seeing past the tight bun, glasses, and thick make-up.  She gave him another smile and glanced back at Sterling who was tapping his briefcase against his legs in a nervous rhythm.     
  
“I think it will be all right,” Sam piped up behind her, two laminated passes in his hand.  “These are your passes; you’ll have access to the facility.  Do you want me to let Mr. Mynas know that you’re here?”   
  
She shook her head and clipped one of the passes to the bottom of her jacket.  “I talked to him before I came in.”   
  
“Let me know if you need anything else,” Sam said eagerly even as she was walking away, Sterling in tow.   
  
Sophie flashed him one last smile, and the second they were around the corner, she pulled off her heels and shoved them into Sterling’s hands.  He opened the briefcase and tossed her a pair of pants and flats.  She stripped off her skirt and jacket and slipped into the loose, comfortable pants, stepping into the flats as she pulled her hair out of the bun and shook the waves free.  She whipped the glasses off her face and took the gun Sterling held out to her, grabbing an extra clip and shoving it into her pocket.  He stuffed all of her discarded clothing into the briefcase and closed it; he raised his own gun and nodded at her.   
  
“Where to first?” he asked as she checked to make sure the safety was off.   
  
She turned to her right and headed for the staircase that would lead to the courtyard door.  “First, we let in Parker and Hardison.  Then, we check the holding cells for people before moving onto handling Mynas.”   
  
He nodded his head and trailed after her.  She moved like a shadow, almost like she was trying to avoid the cameras placed on the wall, though he didn’t think it really mattered if they were seen.  Still, he had to work to keep up, taking a right down a narrow corridor, then a left that led straight to the staircase.  They reached the courtyard door, and Sophie pulled it open slowly.  Parker bounded through with Hardison right behind her.   
  
“Took you long enough,” Parker remarked.  She looked curiously down the hallway and pulled Hardison behind her.  “Come on.”   
  
Sophie motioned for Sterling to follow after them; they were headed back the same way they came, and Parker had already turned a corner.  When Sterling tried to take a right, Sophie had to reach back and drag him after to the left.  They continued on for awhile, their footsteps and breathing the only sounds, and Hardison stopped and looked around.   
  
“Okay, so it’s way too quiet,” he said softly.  “Is that bothering anyone else?”   
  
“It is odd,” Sophie agreed.     
  
“Well, if we are walking into a trap, there’s really nothing we can do about it,” Sterling pointed out.   
  
Hardison turned to him with an irritated look.  “You’re such a bright little ray of sunshine.  What are you doing here again?”   
  
Sterling started to respond, but Sophie stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest.  “No time for arguing.  Let’s keep going and get this done.  Eliot and Nate are halfway done with their negotiations.”   
  
They kept going, another left that took down a staircase and to a short hallway that separated into a fork; Parker and Hardison split off to the right while Sophie stayed to the left.  Bearing straight ahead, they reached the holding cells in less than a minute.  She peered through a window in the door and jerked back with a cry.   
  
“What?” Sterling asked as he stepped up to look.  He took in the scene; dead bodies were piled in the center of the room.  Some looked to have been nurses, others the prisoners.  He sighed and moved back.  “Well, that’s that.”   
  
Sophie had crouched down against the opposite wall, breathing hard, and she looked up at him with wide eyes when he reached a hand down to her.   
  
“Up you get.  We still have things to do,” he told her calmly.   
  
She looked like she was about to argue, but thankfully her common sense caught up with her tongue, and she took his proffered hand, letting him pull her to her feet.  

***************

Parker paced out the room and looked around for a moment before moving to a spot that was a little off the center.   
  
“Here,” she declared with a decisive nod of her head.     
  
Hardison pulled one of the bombs out of the bag and placed it on the ground, pushing the sequence of buttons to activate it.  He waited for the red glow of the display and smiled a little when it showed up.   
  
“Okay, we are active,” he said. He caught the sound of Sophie’s cry of alarm and paused.  “Hey, what’s going on?”   
  
Sterling’s voice floated in his ear, which was something he didn’t particularly like.  “No survivors.  We’re on our way to Mynas.  Get a move on.  We don’t want to get trapped here.”   
  
Parker rolled her eyes at Sterling’s instructions, but she grabbed the bag and took off at a jog out of the room.  Hardison followed after her, listening intently to Nate’s conversation with some CIA agent.

***************

“So, what you want in exchange for keeping our secret is to be left alone?”     
  
Nate eyed the man, Christopher, sitting across from him and gave a terse nod.  “Yes.  I want assurance that my team will be safe from any further…activities conducted by your organization.”   
  
Christopher rocked back in his leather chair and pressed his fingers into a steeple under his chin.  “Deal.  I assume you’re going to keep the files as insurance?”   
  
“Of course,” Nate replied; he could hear Eliot shifting restlessly in the background.  “I wouldn’t want for you to forget and slip up.”   
  
“Fine, fine.  Now, get out.”     
  
They were waved out of the office, and Eliot moved closer to Nate as he muttered, “That was almost too easy.”   
  
Nate’s eyes were already narrowed as he sifted through the details of the meeting.  “I know.  We’re going to the facility.  Something’s not right.”

***************

Christopher dialed a number and waited for the person on the other side to pick up.  “Are any of them there now?”   
  
“The rest of Ford’s crew, sir,” Sam replied.  “They’re planting bombs, and the brunette woman is headed after Mynas.  Do you want me to stop them?”   
  
“No, let them keep working.  We don’t want to tip our hand.”  He paused and scratched at his chin thoughtfully.  “So, they’re going to take care of Mynas as well?  That might just be perfect.  Tell me, do you know how they’re going to set off the bombs?”   
  
“Our technicians hacked into one and said that they’re set to be detonated by a remote,” Sam explained.    
  
“So, that can be overridden?”   
  
“Of course, sir.  What would you like for us to do, sir?”   
  
He grinned.  “Well, I did promise that we would leave Ford’s team alone.  Of course, I never stated exactly how many would be left.”   
  
“We can detonate them now, sir.”   
  
“No, Ford is on his way there now.  Wait until you see a second black van pull into the parking lot, then override the bombs.  Maybe even give them a few seconds to try and run.”   
  
“Yes, sir.”

***************

Mynas didn’t look away from the screens when he heard the doors open.  “So, you’re here to kill me.”   
  
He turned around to see Sophie and Sterling behind him, Sophie holding Joseph at gunpoint.  She shoved Joseph forward, and he stumbled into Mynas.   
  
“Not a hard deduction to make,” she remarked.     
  
Joseph turned to her.  “You’re not a killer.  You can’t do this!”   
  
“I might not have been a killer,” she said slowly, a dangerous smile playing with her lips.  “But, that was before.  This is right now, and I think I just might be one.”   
  
“I guess it was too much to expect to live through this,” Mynas said with a sigh.     
  
“On your knees,” Sterling ordered.   
  
Joseph obeyed immediately, whimpering when Sophie stepped forward and pressed the barrel of her gun against his forehead.     
  
“Do you understand now?” she purred, her eyes narrowed to slits.     
  
Mynas rolled his eyes.  “I don’t kneel.”   
  
Sophie turned on him and shot him in the knee; he screamed and dropped to the floor, falling on his face.  Sterling dragged him up by his collar and forced him to kneel.   
  
He pointed his gun at the back of Mynas’s head while Sophie pressed hers back to Joseph’s forehead.

***************

Nate winced at the sound of the two gunshots as Eliot pulled up to the facility.     
  
“Just put the last bomb in place, boss,” Hardison reported cheerfully.  “On our way…”   
  
When his voice trailed off, Nate straightened in his seat.  “Hardison, what’s going on?”   
  
“The bombs are doing something funny,” Hardison muttered.  Then, his voice was suddenly very loud in Nate’s ear.  “They overrode my control.”   
  
“What does that mean?” Eliot growled, already unbuckling even as he threw the van into park.   
  
“Thirty seconds on the countdown,” Hardison replied.  “We have to get out now.”   
  
There was a faint roar in Nate’s ears, the feeling that he had been here before.  He listened to Sophie and Sterling running their way through twisting hallways; he struggled with his seatbelt until he finally managed to rip it off.  Eliot was halfway to the building, but he stopped short of going any further, body tense as he waited.     
  
The sounds of a struggle caught Nate’s attention.  “What’s happening?  Soph?  Jim?”   
  
“Go, Sophie, I’m right behind you!”   
  
The doors flung open, and there were Parker and Hardison sprinting away from the building, Sophie only a few steps behind them.  Eliot was counting down in his ear.   
  
“Four, three…”   
  
“Jim, get out of there!” Nate shouted, already starting to take off at a run.   
  
He could see Olivia emerging from the other van as he passed it, Maggie hot on her heels, then everything exploded into a brilliant white light.  The ground shook, and he fell back, skidding against the pavement.  He blinked, a loud ringing in his ears; then he heard all the screaming.   
  
He pushed himself upright and took in the scene in front of him.  What was left of the building was on fire, and debris was still raining down out of the sky.  He looked around to find the screaming.   
  
“Let me go!”  Olivia was struggling against Eliot’s iron grip.  “Dad!  He needs me!  Let me go!”   
  
Nate turned his head back to the building and saw three crumpled forms.  He struggled to his feet, stumbling and scraping his hands against the pavement before he found his balance.  Maggie was making a beeline for the inferno, and he thought for a moment he was going to have to stop her, but she stopped when she reached Hardison, shoveling the piles of concrete that pinned him down to the side.     
  
Then, he heard a high-pitched keening scream that cut him to the core.  Sophie.  His eyes latched onto her, and he took off at a run before he even registered what was wrong.  She was trapped under a large piece of something that was burning, and as he skidded to a stop beside her, he grabbed hold of it without thinking.     
  
The pain was almost unbearable, but he gritted his teeth and flung the piece of wood as far as he could.  The sickening stench of charred flesh invaded his nose, and he wasn’t sure if the smell was from both of them or just her.  She clutched at him blindly, her cries of pain catching in the back of her throat.     
  
He could hear sirens in the distance, and he looked back over the scene.  Parker and Hardison weren’t moving; Olivia had collapsed into hysterical sobs in Eliot’s arms; the right side of Sophie’s face was bloody and blistering, and all he could do was pull her up into his lap and wait.   
  
When a paramedic tried to pull Sophie out of his arms, Nate lashed out on instinct, but there was a quick jab of a needle in his arm, and he couldn’t remember anything after that.


	9. the holy or the broken

  
** Chapter Nine:  the holy or the broken**

_“There's a blaze of light in every word_   
_It doesn't matter which you heard_   
_The holy or the broken, hallelujah_   
  
_Hallelujah...  
  
I did my best, it wasn't much_   
_I couldn't feel so I learned to touch_   
_I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you_   
_And even though it all went wrong,_ _I'll stand before the Lord of Song_   
_With nothing on my lips, hallelujah.”_   
**\- “Hallelujah” by Bono**

  
Sterling, no, Jim was dead.  
  
Hardison was completely blind in his left eye and legally blind in his right from the damage done to his eyes by the debris from the explosion.  He could still see shadows and light, and Nate knew that Hardison sometimes caught flashes of blonde hair in his vision because his whole face would light up at the sight.

  
Sophie suffered severe second-degree burns on the right side of her face that caused her to stay in the hospital for a few weeks.  She had thought about refusing the surgery to fix the damage, almost pleased that her perfect features that had been orchestrated by surgeons had been ruined; still, the way she had explained it to Nate, she still wanted to be able to look at herself in the mirror, which she couldn’t do at the time without feeling absolutely hideous.  
  
Parker escaped the explosion with only a sprained ankle and a broken arm.  She had irritated the nursing staff to no end with the way she kept disappearing from her room only to be found at Hardison’s bedside.  She spent her free time learning Braille and researching guide dogs until she threw that idea out and declared she would be Hardison’s guide dog.  
  
It would be easy to say that Eliot, Maggie, Olivia, and he managed to survive that day unscathed, but it wouldn’t be true.  
  
Eliot ran himself into the ground keeping watch over Sophie and Hardison until Maggie intervened and dragged him away from the hospital.  Even after, anyone who looked for it could see the guilt in Eliot’s eyes whenever Hardison was in the room.  Eliot learned how to read Braille along with Parker, found the equipment Hardison needed to keep using his computer without his sight, and for awhile until Hardison managed to set up his own programs, entered coding into a laptop for Hardison with very few complaints or insults.  
  
Olivia was just there.  Eighteen, finally able to live her own life, and she had nowhere to go.  She rotated between his apartment and Maggie’s, but it was a long time before she spoke without heavy encouragement and even longer before she ventured out on her own.  
  
As for Nate, he knew what had happened was his fault.  If he had come up with a better plan or not been so determined to raze that place to the ground, this might have never happened.  Jim would still be alive, Hardison would be able to see, and Olivia wouldn’t be wandering around, her world completely altered forever.  
  
So, he tried telling himself it was what it was.  It worked sometimes, on the days when he woke up and life was okay.  Most of the time, though, he was back with the guilt.  On the nights when he was woken up by one of Sophie’s nightmares that left her shaking and sobbing into his shoulder; the mornings he walked downstairs and found Olivia at the kitchen counter with toast burning in the toaster oven or an untouched mug of coffee in front of her.  
  
The days Hardison wouldn’t come over and Parker stayed on the roof all day; the times Eliot disappeared for a couple of days and came back covered in blood and bruises.  The days Maggie cried and tried to pretend she was okay because she had to be strong for Olivia.  
  
Yeah, the guilt was easier.  He needed a burden to bear, after all.

***************

He came downstairs in the morning to find Sophie and Olivia huddled over shiny college brochures at the kitchen counter.  He could smell coffee and eggs, which meant Sophie had been up for at least the past hour.  On days after she had kept him up half the night with a nightmare, she normally left their bed early in the morning without waking him.  
  
He gave Sophie a quick kiss before making a beeline for the coffee, pouring a cup and topping it off with a dash of whiskey.  
  
“Did you make these or has Eliot already been by?” he asked, taking a sip of the steaming liquid.  
  
Sophie looked up and smiled.  “I made them.  Eliot is taking Maggie out to breakfast.”  
  
“He’s been staying over a lot,” Olivia said quietly, tossing a brochure for the University of Washington aside.  
  
Nate frowned as he spooned some eggs onto a plate; Eliot and Maggie had recently started dating, and as soon as it happened, Sophie had told him he was not allowed an opinion and to not interfere.  He still didn’t like it.  Of course, he hadn’t liked Maggie and Sterling together either, so there was that.  
  
“Have you heard from Hardison or Parker?” he asked quickly because he really wanted to change the subject.  
  
“Parker said they’ll be over later.  Eliot’s planning on cooking for all of us,” Sophie replied as she walked over to the sink and deposited her mug there.  
  
In the right light, he could sometimes see the faint scars underneath her make-up, barely visible but there, regardless.  It made his chest tighten painfully every time; today, she slid her arm around his waist and pressed into his side, her hip flush against his, and the pressure went away a little.  
  
“Something’s bothering you,” she murmured, turning her head and pressing a kiss to his cheek.  
  
He ducked his head because that was true, and he knew she was searching for an explanation; he just didn’t think he could give her one because it was only a feeling, a sneaking, suspicious thought that had been haunting him ever since the explosion, followed him through their move to Portland.  
  
They were never meant to survive that explosion.  Or maybe they were, but there was something else at work here, and he couldn’t figure out what it was.  He felt they were being played in some fashion, and he didn’t know how.  
  
He shook his head and smiled at her.  “It’s nothing.  Just a passing thought.”

***************

“You’ve done well, Jim.  Very well.”  
  
Sterling nodded his head and turned from the window.  “So, our deal?”  
  
“When this is over, you and your daughter will walk away, and we will not bother you again.”  
  
“When will that be?”  
  
“A year or two.”  Christopher leaned over his desk and grinned.  “You know, Mynas wasn’t a credit to our organization.  He served better as a decoy to get Ford out of hiding than he ever did as head of operations.  Now that I’m in charge, things will be done properly.”  
  
“When I called in that favor, you never mentioned that you were working for the same organization as Mynas,” Sterling said slowly.  “How do I know I can trust you now?”  
  
“Well, you don’t know for sure.  But it wasn’t really a favor.  We agreed to protect your daughter in exchange for your services,” Christopher replied.  “Besides, it was easy being your bodyguard.”  
  
“Did you intend on blowing them up?”  
  
Christopher shrugged.  “They had enough time to get out.  I figured if one of them died, well…no one’s irreplaceable.  Still, I’m glad we’ve got the whole set just ripe for the picking.”  
  
“They’re damaged goods now,” Sterling remarked.  
  
Christopher waved a hand dismissively.  “Ah, we have people who can fix that.  But, they think it’s over.”  
  
“Yes, they do.”  Sterling heaved a sigh.  “Nathan Ford will never know what hit him.”


End file.
